Deltapine Varieties Gain Ground in 2016

From Cotton Grower Magazine – November 2016

As far as Deltapine seed varieties go, DP 1522 B2XF is something of a throwback. In recent years, researchers in Deltapine’s breeding program have churned out a wide portfolio of seed varieties featuring any combination of traits and characteristics. The idea has been to customize varieties to a point that growers can find one that they feel is tailor-made for their own fields.

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One by-product of this influx of variety options is that, generally, no single Deltapine variety gobbles up wide swaths of acreage. But DP 1522 B2XF bucked that trend in 2016, snatching up over 5% of national upland cotton acreage, including a whopping 16% of acres in the Southeast.

“It’s one of those unique sets of germplasm that travels east to west really well. It’s a top performer in the Carolinas and it’s a top performer in West Texas. It also travels north to south really well,” says Keylon Gholston, cotton products manager for Deltapine. “Part of that is due to the strength of terminal that variety has got. It’s got top-end yield potential on irrigated acres, and it also performs very well on dryland acres.”

As for what makes the variety so popular? “There are three major characteristics: Yield, and yield, and yield,” Gholston says with a laugh. “It’s also got really great fiber quality.”

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As part of the Class of 16, DP 1646 B2XF is poised to be hot on the heels of DP 1522 B2XF in terms of the number of acres the variety occupies in 2017.  Like its predecessor, DP 1646 B2XF fits across many different soil types and irrigation regimes across wide swaths of the Cotton Belt.

“One thing that I’ve seen this year is just its overall plant health in the Southeast,” Gholston says of DP 1646 B2XF. “This has been a tough year in Georgia and South Alabama from a foliar disease standpoint, and this variety just has excellent plant health.”

Gholston says the variety is easy to manage, and growers who were able to plant it as a new variety introduction in 2016 have raved about its yield and fiber quality characteristics.

“If you can make another 50 pounds, and you get another 50 to 100 points on because of the quality, that makes a pretty big difference in today’s market,” Gholston says. And early word during harvest season from places like South Texas, was that DP 1646 B2XF was raising the bar for yield potential.

Another variety, DP 1538 B2XF, snatched up an impressive 19% of the acres in the Southeast in 2016. Gholston expects that variety’s yield and fiber characteristics to continue to be attractive to growers in that region.

In the Mid-South, Deltapine varieties were planted on a full 50% of all cotton acres in 2016. Two early maturing varieties – DP 1522 B2XF and DP 1518 B2XF – were particularly popular in the Delta states.

“Growers in the Mid-South, or anywhere across the Belt where there are resistant weeds, they need the XtendFlex technology badly,” Gholston says. “But with today’s economy, you can’t give up yield to get it. So these varieties were very popular, because of the combination of the XtendFlex technology that was paired with the best germplasm available.”

Deltapine varieties also accounted for large market share in the Southwest, where DP 1612 B2XF is poised to have a breakout year in 2017.

“It’s a large-seeded variety that has rapid stand establishment and really vigorous early season growth,” says Gholston. A more full-season option that is gaining fans in the Southwest is DP 1549 B2XF, which Gholston compares to DP 1044 B2RF for its water use efficiency.

 

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