Drew's Half Acre - Patience is Tough, When Pests Are in the Field

By Drew Harris
dharris@meistermedia.com

It's amazing what you'll hear just shooting the breeze with cotton growers and consultants on the turn row.

Earlier this season, while visiting with a farmer about some trials he was doing on a new early input for cotton, he told me that one of the most troublesome pests this year wasn't insects or weeds, but whitetail deer. With the dry summer keeping natural forage to a minimum, his cotton fields look like the salad bar at Ryan's Steakhouse on Saturday night to the local deer population. I knew deer would sometimes eat cotton, but what he said next was new to me: "Believe it or not, the deer really love the Roundup Ready Flex best. They go straight to it and just tear it up."

I don't know if there have been any university studies on the nutritional content of Flex cotton, and I'm not sure if blind tasting trials are coming down the pipeline. But I can see the advertising campaign already. "Tastes great, less fretting - spray all season long."

At Drew's Half Acre, my cotton pests have been a little more traditional. (My deer management program, which I implement Saturday mornings during the winter, probably keeps the deer at bay.) I planted on May 11 and a little more than two weeks later I had a stand - but things weren't all perfect in Dixieland. Thrips and nutsedge were trying to keep me out of the cotton business, so I have been fighting back with a solid pest management program.

On June 5, I tank mixed 16 ounces of Roundup with .75 ounces of a pyretheroid to give me the one-two punch I needed. About five days later, most of the weeds and grasses were turning, and I couldn't find as many thrips on the plants - but parts of the field still looked fairly green. Everyone told me to be patient, "you have to give it time to work" - but that's easier said than done.

Waiting for my management program to work gave me a true appreciation for what farmers endure all season long. If my Half Acre gets overrun by bugs or weeds, I'll just tuck-tail back to the office and hang another hat on the rack of experience. But for growers, that crop is their livelihood, and I can only imagine the pressures and stress they face.

The next weekend I went down to the field, and I was a little relieved. New leaves didn't show any thrips damage, and most of the weeds were toast. I did notice quite a few ants on a few sections of the field, and a large amount of the grass still alive - the Roundup stunted it, but it was still hanging on. The grass was turning an olive color, but my first thought reminded me just how green I still am when it comes to growing cotton. I just knew my field had some new glyphosate-resistant grass that was previously undiscovered. I pulled a couple of clumps to show to John Bradley at the Agricenter.

My fears were quickly mollified; I wasn't dealing with a super-grass, just a hearty growth of nutsedge. John explained that it can take a few doses of Roundup to get nutsedge, and he said even the best farmers sometimes worry about the grass. He said another round or two of glyphosate should do the trick, but that I would need to stay on top of it. As for the ants, John explained they were beneficial insects, and I didn't need to worry about them. Growers were starting to see plant bugs, he said, and I needed to be on the look out. That I can do.

Until next month, see you in the field …

Drew can be contacted at dharris@meistermedia.com or by phone at 901-756-8822, ext. 13.