SDI in the Mid-South?
September 12, 2009 Crowley’s Ridge is a geological formation that runs from Cape Girardeau, MO, to the Gulf of Mexico. One theory of its creation is that the ridge was originally an island between the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers left high and dry when both rivers changed courses millions of years ago. A more recent study suggests a link between the ridge and the nearby New Madrid Seismic Zone. That study also suggests Crowley’s Ridge is still growing.
Whatever Crowley’s Ridge is, it’s a fact that groundwater to its east extending through the Mississippi Delta is more readily available than it is to its west. That’s why growers on the western side understand the absolute necessity of water conservation.
“We’re in the process of being declared a critical groundwater area from Crowley’s Ridge west in this county,” says Joe Whittenton, a cotton and soybean grower in St. Francis County, AR, near Forrest City. Forrest City sits just at the western foot of Crowley’s Ridge.
Still, growers across the Belt realize the lack of irrigation is one of the greatest limiting factors in cotton production. You have to find ways to work around it, but you can’t get around it.
“We’re close to 100% irrigated on cotton,” Whittenton says. “What we get with irrigation is stability plus an increase in yield. There’s no question about it. It keeps you in business. We can’t farm without it.”
While the majority of his acreage is either pivot- or furrow-irrigated, Whittenton began looking at sub-surface drip irrigation (SDI) in 2001, and now has a total of 187 acres covered by drip.
“I was looking for a way to conserve water and a better way to deliver it,” says Whittenton.
SDI is nothing new in areas of Texas where groundwater is a precious commodity. While there are no exact figures, it’s estimated that in 2000, there were 2,500 acres of SDI in the state. The best guess for this year is that there are 300,000 acres with SDI, meaning Texas has 60,000 more acres in SDI than Louisiana has in cotton total. It’s tied with Mississippi and the Missouri Bootheel, and makes up 42% of Arkansas’ acreage.
So to say SDI in the Mid-South is unique would be quite the understatement. There are no other known SDI systems in Arkansas and none at all in Louisiana. There’s one in south Mississippi in a corn field. Alabama has two growers with SDI systems, another at an experiment station and others in research.
Whittenton has both electric- and diesel-driven SDI systems, and with the exception of cranking the engine, the diesel system can be controlled from his office computer. The electric system is fully programmable, but the programming is done in the field.
Center-pivots still cover the highest percentage of Whittenton’s acreage, the first of which was installed in 1984.
“We’re in a different situation than a lot of people,” he says. “I can walk out the back of the shop and see almost every pivot we have. I have one pivot that will call my cell phone if something is wrong or if it stops. I can start or stop it from my cell phone or computer. All of the others are programmable, but I have to go to the field to do it.”
Century and a Half
Whittenton’s great grandfather, Joseph Alexander Whittenton, came to the Forrest City area in the 1860s with a railroad survey crew and decided to settle in the area. In 1882 he bought 300 acres of land and the family’s acreage has been growing ever since.
The family tree branched out to include his granddad, Joseph Willard Whittenton; his dad, Joseph Willard Whittenton, Jr.; his wife Wanda; his twin sons, Bryan and Will (16), and another son, Lucas (11).
After receiving a General Ag degree from Mississippi State University in 1979, Whittenton came back to the farm and took over its management in 1981. Over those years, and while other growers in the Mid-South and Southeast have moved away from cotton to higher-priced soybeans and corn, Whittenton’s cotton acreage has remained relatively stable.
“We increased a few acres this year,” he says. “You dance with the one who brought you. Cotton has been good to us and I think it’ll continue to be good for us. We have good soil for cotton.”
Whittenton plants the major varieties from Stoneville, Deltapine and PhytoGen.
“We still have some Bollgard varieties – probably less than half, and most of it’s (DP) 445,” he says. “We’ve got several different Bollgard II varieties and we have a test plot with Tom.”
“Tom” is Arkansas Extension cotton specialist Tom Barber.
“The jury’s still out on whether we’ve found good replacements for the Bollgard varieties,” says Whittenton. “But with verticillium wilt coming in, we have to look at all the packages.”
All of his Bollgard II varieties are stacked with the Roundup Ready Flex trait.
“The only advantage I see with Flex is that you can spray later if you have to,” Whittenton says. “With resistance coming, Flex is a technology we can work with, but it doesn’t give us an advantage by itself.”
The PhytoGen varieties have WideStrike – a twin-stacked Bt trait from Dow.
Marestail resistance can be reasonably dealt with, although it’s best avoided. “We’ve had resistant marestail along the drip, but we’ve been able to contend with it,” says Whittenton.
Palmer amaranth, on the other hand, can’t be reasoned with. “For the last few years, when we see Palmer amaranth, we go pull it up and carry it out of the field,” Whittenton says. “We’re doing it this year. We’ve been fortunate – we’ve only had it in spots, but when we see plants, we go get ‘em.”
Whittenton says he, his twin sons and another man have been able to take care of Palmer amaranth pulling so far: “I haven’t had to hire chopping crews.”
The standard recommendation across the entire Southern Cotton Belt is to add residuals to tank mixes with Roundup, or use them alone between Roundup applications.
“We burndown in March with a hard shot of dicamba, Touchdown and Valor,” Whittenton says. “That may be overkill, but we burn it down. Then we fertilize and row up.
“This year we used Caparol at-planting, but we have to be careful not to repeat the same chemistry. If we want to layby with Suprend, which is Envoke and Caparol, then we want to use a different one as a pre-emerge because we don’t want to use Caparol twice in one year. We’ve never been totally Roundup; we’ve used Dual or Sequence with it and a residual at lay-by.”
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