More Thoughts - Heat related and Small Cotton
6-24
As I look at the crop and talk to farmers, there are two key questions that come up:
- Does this Extreme Heat following the wet conditions create a need for management adjustment?
- Is it too hot to spray Dual, Warrant/Enversa, Outlook? (Just for clarification, all these products have a similar risk for leaf scorch)
My major question is more related to fertility. Specifically, nitrogen. I feel like this crop has not got vigor in it like it needs to prior to bloom and I think it is a lack of nitrogen and probably sulfur. It might be related to heat also, but I have seen cotton that is well fed with some soil moisture grow fast in heat even when it was flopping in the middle of the day. The primary focus should be to get the cotton that was planted in the first half of the planting season top dressed ASAP so that when we get some rain, that fertilizer gets activated.
As far as those first two questions go, stick to plan A and realize that, even though cotton is not going to get as big prior to bloom as normal, it can turn around quickly with multiple rains. If you get cotton top dressed in the 20 to 26 inch range with no blooms then some Pix could be used, and if you need to use residual herbicides, just wait until late morning to start. I would probably try to find and more generic roundup with a weaker surfactant than PowerMax or Liberty Ultra if mixing Dual, Warrant/Enversa, or outlook. If you spray the residual herbicide by itself, the scorch will be much less.
After Nitrogen, time to think about Growth Management.
6-23-25
As soon as we get the nitrogen out, it is time to think about Growth Management. We like to look at what we should have done last year to make plans for what we should do this year. Before we give too much credit for 2024, Can you think of two more opposite years than the way May and June have been this year compared to last year? Last year, the dry conditions in June made us wait on Pix and when it started raining in mid-July, we got behind. This year I am sensing a more aggressive tone about Pix applications. Before you apply a strong rate of pix to short cotton consider these trends for this year:
- Heat is hitting records for late June into early July.
- Rainfall is trending down.
- Early cotton growth was inhibited early by thrips and cool temperature
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