Missouri’s cotton and rice crops have battled a variety of pest and weather challenges this growing season.
Agronomists in southeast Missouri say the region may still produce decent cotton and rice crops, although there likely won’t be any record yields.
Chase Floyd, a University of Missouri Extension crop protection specialist, said both crops have some variety in how they look and their expected yields.
Spring rains impacted cotton fields differently depending on when the cotton was planted and how established it was when some heavy rains hit.
“It just depends on where the cotton was when we got all that rain and if it took injury,” Floyd said. “…Cotton is super sensitive when it’s a seedling.”
Floyd said smaller cotton struggled with the wet weather.
“It comes out of the ground and wants to die, and then once it grows it’s like a preteen, you can’t tell it to do anything,” he said.
MU Extension Cotton Specialist Bradley Wilson said in general the cotton looks decent.
“Most of the cotton looks pretty good for what it’s been through,” Wilson said.
He said the cool, wet weather in the spring was a challenge, and planting was spread out.
“We had some cotton go in early, then some planted May 1 through 10,” he said.
Eventually warm weather helped it take off.
“In late June, we started getting hot weather, and that turned things around for us,” Wilson said. “We felt like early on, the cotton just sat there because of the cool, wet weather.”
New Madrid County farmer Clay Hawes said hot weather during the summer has helped.
“The weather here has been well into the triple-digit heat indexes, and cotton really thrives in warm weather,” he said. “With very dry conditions, farmers have been able to apply the needed regulators, insecticides and pesticides. The cotton crop looks to be in great condition. The dry weather has also allowed growers to control the irrigation on tillable acres.”
Insects were a challenge this year, Floyd said.
“In terms of insects, it was a very unique year, and again that really has to do with all that rain,” he said.
Source: https://agupdate.com/