How’d Texas Do That?

Yields double in less than a decade. Quality is the best of the best.

By Henry Gantz
hgantz@meistermedia.com

Using In 2000, the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) said Texas cotton growers produced 3.94 million bales of cotton on 6.4 million acres. In 2007, again according to NASS, they more than doubled the number of bales to 8.1 million, and did it on 1.5 million fewer acres.

What changed to help Texans increase yields from 2000’s 430 pounds per acre to 2007’s 827? In a word – everything.

“We’re learning how to utilize our water better and drip irrigation has helped,” says Randy Coleman of Levelland, TX. “We’ve fine tuned our fertilizer applications. And varieties have really changed the way we produce cotton.”

Subsurface-drip-irrigation (SDI) covers 1,100 of Coleman’s 3,000 cotton acres in Roosevelt County, NM, and Bailey County, TX. The remaining acreage includes 1,400 under center pivots. “I think we get more bang for our buck with drip because we’re not wasting water,” he says. “There’s no evaporation and everything goes directly into the root system.

“Our water table is beginning to drop, and we don’t have near the water we used to,” Coleman continues, “so we to try to make the most efficient use of it.”

Randy Coleman and B. J. Kennedy

Adds B. J. Kennedy, “Ten years ago, a bale-and-a-half was a good crop. With pivots you need to make two bales; with drip you need to make three. And you can.”

Kennedy raises 1,800 acres of cotton near Levelland, and also works at the Wilbur-Ellis retail dealership there. Kennedy has 1,000 acres of irrigated land, with 500 of that in SDI. Another 50 acres of SDI is going in now.

Coleman installed his first SDI system six years ago. “Chemicals and fertilizers are injected into the drip system and it puts it right where the roots are growing,” he says. “We’ll run zinc through twice when the plants are young because zinc releases other nutrients. We try to feed the plant everything it needs when it needs it. We will also run Vydate through for nematodes.”

Coleman’s battle is against the root-knot nematode, and in addition to Vydate, he fights them with Temik and crop rotation. “I had a couple of farms where the cotton nearly died because the nematodes were so bad,” he says. “Our ideal rotation to break the nematode cycle would be peanuts, followed by a small-grain crop like milo, then back to cotton.

“Until grain prices went up so high, peanuts were the only crop besides cotton that would cash flow here,” he continues. “We were the first ones in the county to grow peanuts and all of a sudden, our cotton yields started increasing tremendously behind peanuts.”

Coleman uses composted manure more so than manufactured fertilizer because, he says, “we’re getting more nutrients to the plants from the manure. The feedlot brings it to us in their spreader trucks and we incorporate it. The feedlot will add some fertilizer to the compost to get it into a form that will break down, but mainly it’s manure.”

Using Mother Nature’s best fertilizer is the only thing remotely low-tech in Coleman’s operation. “When John Deere came out with the RTK system, I was the first to get in line,” he says. “It’s tremendous – we can do everything accurately.

That accuracy allowed him to move from 8-row equipment up to 16-row. “I bought a 16-row bedder and I saw what I could do with that,” he says. “We’ve expanded everything to 16-row and I have been able to cut down on my fuel, tractor time and labor.”

Making the Grade
Not only have Texas yields improved dramatically, but so have grades. West Texas now produces some of the highest quality Upland fiber in the world. And according to Louis Dreyfus Commodities, Texas is doing it with input costs of $171 per acre, compared to $367 per acre in the Delta.

“Loan values were just unbelievable last year,” Coleman says. “We had one block that went in at 59 cents. The worst we had was 54 or 55 and that was on dryland. My average loan was in the mid-57s last year on 4,000 bales.”

Adds Kennedy, “If you didn’t get 58 cents for your best irrigated cotton, you were probably disappointed.”

Randy Coleman is a FiberMax believer.

Coleman attributes much of the yield and fiber improvements to FiberMax varieties from Bayer CropScience. “I’m strictly FiberMax,” he says. “Seven or eight years ago, there was a farmer here who grew FiberMax 958, and after I saw what it did, I made the decision to go with FiberMax. Our yields and quality have improved tremendously.”

He also credits another Bayer Crop Science product – Stance plant growth regulator – for improved quality. “Last year we had some cotton that was trying to get away from us and we’d already used (mepiquat chloride),” Coleman says. “It had been hailed on in August and it was trying to come back; starting to grow again. The Stance just stopped it in its tracks. Where we used Stance the quality was better and the yield was better.”

This season Coleman will plant FM 9058F (non-Bt/Flex), FM 989B2R (Bollgard II/Roundup Ready), FM 9063B2F (Bollgard II/Flex) and FM 960BR (Bollgard/Roundup Ready).

“Bollgard II has made things so much easier because you don’t have the nickel-and-dime effect you had with Bollgard – we had some issues with beet armyworm with Bollgard, but Bollgard II suppresses them to the point where they are not a factor,” Coleman says. “And I love Flex because you have a much broader window to treat your weeds.”

Kennedy adds, “I’ve got a 24-row sprayer, and once we get past the sand-fighting stage, one guy can do all of the spraying. It would be much more intense if I only had conventional varieties, but I can do it all with Roundup Ready Flex and Bollgard II.”

Kennedy also plants FM 9058 and FM 9063, plus Stoneville’s ST 4554B2RF (Bollgard II, Roundup Ready Flex) and All-Tex’s Apex B2RF (Bollgard II, Roundup Ready Flex).

Coleman sets what he considers reasonable yield goals using something similar to a cost/benefit ratio. “When I was a kid, I watched guys try to make as much yield as they could, no matter what it cost. Some of them went broke doing it,” he says. “I’ve made four-bale cotton, but very little. I can still make a profit with three-bale cotton and I don’t have to use the inputs and management it takes to go higher.”

Diversified Farm Family

Kyla Coleman

You hear about diversified family farms all the time. But how about a diversified farm family?

Randy Coleman attended Texas Tech University on a rodeo scholarship, and after years of roping, he is now raising race horses. “I am comfortable where I am with acreage right now,” he says. “I’m not consumed with farming to the point where I don’t have time to do other things.”

Coleman’s wife Sandy is a farm-loan specialist at Citizens Bank in Lubbock. Twenty years ago, Sandy began helping grower neighbors package Farm Service Administration loans, and that led her into the banking system on a professional basis. “She didn’t have a background in banking and finance, she’s just a shrewd business woman,” Coleman says. “She understands farming very well and she has a good grip on what farmers need.”

His son Ryan, 24, is a third-year medical student at Washington University in St. Louis. Upon graduation, he hopes to become a pediatric cardiologist and has already assisted on transplant teams.

Coleman’s daughter Kyla, 20, is a sophomore at Texas Tech University and a member of the Lady Raider tennis team.