Settling in for the Winter Meetings
January 27, 2011 The winter meetings are upon us, and I for one am glad for it.
Many of you growers are making plans to attend at least one of these meetings during the off season. They do serve an important purpose in telling us all what to expect as we head into the 2011 growing season. But they also provide something else, for me, at least: entertainment.
As someone who spends most of the year reading studies and press releases from assorted companies, Extension experts, economists and ag professors, it’s nice to be able to get out during the winter and put a face to all of those names. I was doing just that at a Cotton Incorporated Crop Management Seminar on a cold day in Memphis this winter when a spirited exchange broke out between a Tennessee crop consultant and a panel of weed experts.
The subject of putting Ignite herbicide – which is expressly intended for Bayer’s LibertyLink cotton varieties – on top of PhytoGen’s WideStrike cotton varieties had come up earlier in the discussion. This was the first time I’d heard this topic mentioned in public, as both companies had stated they do not support the practice.
The weed experts, led by Dr. Ken Smith at the podium, laid out several reasons growers should be wary of the practice. They said they would offer a clearer picture of their findings on the matter at the winter meetings. Undeterred, the crop consultant waited until the question and answer session, then lit into a line of questions that revealed that he thought the practice was perfectly useful – even necessary to save a crop in some cases.
Dr. Jason Bond and others again explained some of their findings on why the practice could be problematic, only this time they did it more emphatically. After about 10 minutes of responding, one of them asked, rather pointedly, “Does that answer your question?”
Clearly unshaken, the consultant smiled and said simply “No.” The audience that day broke into loud laughter as he finally sat down. It was the kind of interaction I don’t get sitting at a desk during the growing season.
We have a short feature on the relationship between Ignite and WideStrike in this issue of Cotton Grower, but as you’ll read, we plan to learn more about the subject at the coming winter meetings.
I encourage all of you to read about the 2010 Cotton Grower Cotton Achievement Award winner, Rickey Bearden, in this issue. Mr. Bearden is a great example of the caliber of people who make the cotton industry as successful as it is today, and we’re honored to name him this year’s Achievement Award recipient.
You’ll also find our annual acreage survey results beginning on page 14. If our findings are accurate, we could be in for an acreage boom in 2011.
We hope to find out more about acreage as we interact with you all at these winter meetings, beginning with the Beltwide Cotton Conferences in Atlanta in early January. This issue should be in your hands as you stroll around the Conference grounds. As always, we hope to see you there.
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