COTTON CROP

Harvest time approaches

T. J. ROYAL

If the rain and cold weather would hold off for a few more weeks, Extension Director Art Bradley and Edgecombe County cotton growers would be happier.

Right now, Benjie Webb said he is finishing spraying his cotton acreage with a chemical that kills the leaves of the plant, so that his pickers can get the bolls out. If the rain will hold off, he said he will have his pickers start gathering up the cotton by Monday.

Webb, 47, has most of his 325 acres of cotton planted around the Pinetops area. Walking near the edge of 10 acres of cotton planted at his Faith Baptist Church Road home, Webb said that a successful cotton harvest this year for him would be to have a 700-800 pounds-per-acre average. "If you can make a good crop, it's fairly good" what a farmer can make off the cotton when prices are up, he said.

But the cold and wet weather the area has experienced within the past week "is just not good at all for cotton" during harvesting time Bradley said. The delay in harvesting it will also affect the poundage of his crop, Webb said: "The sooner you can get to it, the better it weighs."

Even with the recent rains, the farmer added that his cotton received ample rain over the summer to sprout up well. But that hasn't been the case countywide, with Bradley saying that a wide swath extending from Sharpsburg clear to Oak City missed out on a lot of rainfall. The most consistent rainfall has been in the southern end of the county, Bradley added.

If the cold, rainy weather holds off and some sunshine can get on his plants, Webb expects he can have all his cotton harvested over the next three weeks.

Besides keeping the weight up, both men said that rain is detrimental to cotton because it will remove the oils from the bolls, turning their white color into an unattractive gray. "It doesn't make it puffy, and makes it harder to pick" once he has his combines set to pick the cotton plants, Webb added.

But, with a few consecutive days of sunshine on them afterwards, Bradley said the bolls can return to their desire, naturally white color.

Besides the recent rains, Webb added that pigweed has been a big issue for his cotton harvest this year. While Bradley said that countywide, many growers have successfully kept the destructive weed at bay, Webb said "it's getting worse" for him.

"More of it is becoming resistant to the Round-Up" product he has used on his fields in the past, Webb said. Part of his pigweed problem, he added, came from his decision to use a cheaper herbicide this year. "You have to spend more to try to control it," he said.

Aside from the extra cost Edgecombe farmers have incurred protecting their crops against weeds, Bradley said they have also had to spend more on fertilizer this planting season, as well as on their seeds for their cotton crop.

The total acres of cotton planted this year in Edgecombe was 19,000, the lowest total planted in the county since 1990, Bradley said. The Extension director added that last year, 27,000 acres of cotton were planted, with 52,000 acres planted as recently as 2006.

The main reason cotton prices are decreasing, he said, is because prices remain well below $1 per 100 pounds of cotton crop. Around 60 cents per 100 pounds is the financial break-even point for Edgecombe cotton growers, Bradley added: The price is currently at 65 cents per 100 pounds.

But before it can go to market, Webb said it all depends "on how the weather turns out" this week and next, whether he will have a quality cotton crop for 2009.