NCC Sets 2019 P.I.E. Program Tour Dates

By Cotton Grower Staff|May 29, 2019

The National Cotton Council (NCC) has scheduled tour dates and locations for the 2019 Producer Information Exchange (P.I.E.) Program.

Now in its 31st year, the program has enabled more than 1,100 U.S. cotton producers to visit Cotton Belt regions different than their own to learn about their peers’ innovative production practices.

This season, two of the three P.I.E. tours will occur simultaneously. From July 28 through August 2, producers from the Southeast will see Mid-South farming operations in the Missouri Bootheel, West Tennessee and northeast Arkansas, while Southwest producers will tour California’s San Joaquin Valley. The third tour, set for August 11-16, will enable Mid-South and Far West producers to travel to the Southeast to visit farming operations in North Carolina and Virginia.

Sponsored by Bayer, through a grant to The Cotton Foundation, the P.I.E. program was developed to help U.S. cotton producers maximize production efficiency and improve yields and fiber quality by gaining new perspectives in fundamental practices such as land preparation, planting, fertilization, pest control, irrigation and harvesting; and by observing diverse farming practices and the ways in which other producers have adopted new and existing technology.

A unique program benefit is that the participants get to ask questions of both the producers they visit on the tours but also from producers from their own region that they travel with during the week.