Making the Most of What He Has
May 5, 2015 From Cotton Grower Magazine – May 2015
One thing is certain on Johnny Louder’s farming operation. Given the chance, he can hit his cotton yields out of the park.
The proof is in the numbers. In 2005, Bayer CropScience began honoring cotton producers in the Southwest who yielded over 2,000 pounds per acre with the FiberMax One Ton Club. Over 800 growers have been recognized with the honor since the program began. Louder is one of only two cotton producers to have qualified for the One Ton Club in each year of the award’s existence.
Always humble, Louder deflects any praise heaped on him for achieving such consistently strong yields over 10 years of varied conditions.
“We’ve been fortunate, because we’ve always been able to keep our first plant,” Louder says. “If you have to replant here, you’re looking at losing potentially a bale an acre.”
Unfortunately, Louder and his neighbors in Martin County, Texas, know the perils of replanting all too well. In this area, just north of Midland, any number of Mother Nature’s maladies can take out a crop in an instant. In addition to drought, sand and hail, Louder must contend with a dearth of reliable labor thanks to high-paying competition from the oil industry. And of course, he struggles with low prices and shifting farm policy, like most American growers.
Through all the challenges, though, the yields have remained high. Once again deflecting any praise, Louder credits his varieties.
“The FiberMax varieties seem to really adapt to the weather conditions,” Louder says. “They seem to wait until you get a little moisture. They have a great ability to hold their fruit and not to shed.”
Despite what he may say, Louder has come by his on-farm successes through hard work and a keen eye for overcoming challenges.
Louder is a fourth generation cotton farmer. He graduated from Texas Tech in 1972 and returned to the farm to join his father in the family business. The two farmed together until his father passed away this past year.
“He had a debilitating stroke six years ago, and he did all he could do up until the day he died,” Louder says. “He climbed on the tractor and did all the hay baling. He loved to get up early, climb on that bailer, and by the time I got there at 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning, he’d already been baling for four or five hours. He loved to do that.”
That dedication to the tasks at hand was passed down through the generations on the farm. Today, Johnny farms with his own son, Jeremy, who also returned home upon graduation from Texas Tech. Education is very important to the Louder family.
“I think the thing I’m probably the proudest of is our focus on education,” says Louder. “I’ve got my degree and my wife has a master’s. My oldest son is a banker in Midland, and he and his wife both have a master’s. My middle son has a bachelor’s from Texas Tech, and his wife has a doctorate. My youngest son has a master’s, and his wife has a double-major bachelor’s degree. We’re big on education.”
Whatever knowledge he didn’t pick up in the classroom has been learned through experience on his 4,500 acre farm. Louder has learned how to make the most of what he’s got in his farming operation. He is a strong proponent of cover crops – a necessity in a place as windblown as his.
“Even the cotton stalks,” Louder says. “We leave those cotton stalks tall enough, and then we’ll come back in there with either a strip till or a fertilizer rig, and it will knock those stalks down. But you’d be surprised how much protection that stalk lying on the ground provides.”
Another factor Louder must contend with is a labor shortage. Oil fields share space with cotton in this part of West Texas, and the jobs the oil industry provides often pay more than a farmer is able to offer. Louder gets by with only his son, two hired hands and a family friend who doubles as a part-time tractor driver.
With so few hands available, Louder and his son have had to get creative in their efforts to cover 4,500 acres. They’ve employed remote-controlled irrigation technology to cut down on fuel costs.
Nematodes are a constant challenge, and the loss of Temik has had major ramifications on Louder’s farm. He employs several tools to control the pests, including planting Stoneville’s nematode tolerant ST 4946GLB2.
“The fiber quality on that variety is very good,” Louder says. “We’ll continue to use it to help with nematodes.”
But despite all these obstacles, the biggest challenge Louder faces is water availability.
Typically, he plants around 4,000 acres in cotton each year. Roughly 20 percent of that ground is irrigated – although he is quick to note that he would classify his water scenario as “light irrigation.”
That leaves most all of Louder’s acreage vulnerable to drought-like conditions. He has farmed this land as a partner for 43 years, and will tell you without hesitation that 2011 was the most difficult season he’s seen.
“It was just unbelievably dry from the word go,” he says. “It was unbearably hot. It was the perfect storm in the worst way.”
Unfortunately, that season was a sign of things to come. The 2012 and 2013 growing seasons were devastatingly dry as well. For a predominately dryland farmer like Louder, it was a frustrating time. He still made remarkable yields on his irrigated fields, but the large majority of his farm remained bone dry.
When the long drought finally broke in 2014, Louder was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
“We made a decent crop,” Louder says. “It surprised all of us in the end. We hadn’t made a stalk in the three years prior to it. We made between 500 to 600 pounds an acre in most spots, and the quality wasn’t bad. For dryland, we had some fiber quality that was unbelievable.”
In a light-irrigation scenario, any rainfall can make a huge difference. In 2014, it propelled Louder back into the One Ton Club with the FiberMax FM 2484B2F variety.
Having regained success in 2014, a relatively dry year, Louder is now salivating over his prospects in 2015. His area of the South Plains has received decent rainfalls over the winter and early spring, and he says he’s prepared to be proactive with his fertilizer and crop protection programs.
“We’re using more pre-plant fertilizer because we know the potential is there this year,” Louder says.
Heading into planting, prices left much to be desired in cotton. But Louder says he plans on continuing to find a way to be successful, no matter the obstacle.
“We’re all having to change, to find a way,” Louder says. “Farming cotton is different than it used to be, but you just have to change with it.”
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