Agricultural News
Oklahoma Poised to Produce the Biggest Cotton Crop Since the 1930s- Ron Hays Talks Cotton With Randy Boman
Fri, 22 Sep 2017 06:04:01 CDT
Oklahoma has had a million bale cotton crop before- but not since the Dust Bowl era. USDA has predicted in their Spetember Crop Report that Oklahoma will be knocking on the door of a million bale crop this fall with a prediction of 980,000 bales to be produced on about 550,000 acres. Oklahoma State University Extension Cotton Specialist Dr. Randy Boman says that you have to go back to 1933 to find a bigger production number for Oklahoma- that year the state produced 1.3 million bales on 2.6 million acres.
Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays talked with Boman about the status of the 2017 crop on the sidelines of the Carnegie Coop Cotton Gin Fall Harvest Cotton Tour on Thursday- held on the Merlin Schantz farm in southern Blaine County. You can listen to Hays and Boman by clicking on the LISTEN BAR below.
Dr. Boman and Hays talked about the potential of reaching the predictions made by USDA's NASS in their September Crop Report, about the stress on ginning capacity that this large crop will produce in Oklahoma this year, about where the added acres this year are located within the state and where cotton production may be headed in the next couple of years in Oklahoma.
Dr. Boman does worry about getting the 2017 crop finished- saying that the dryland acres in the state have been stressed in the last few weeks due to dry conditions in many locations- and he is also worried that later planted cotton that has a lot of yield potential may not have enough heat units to reach that potential. Dr. Boman also worries about the crop once it is harvested- saying growers will need to make sure their modules of cotton are protected from excessive moisture- as he believes many of those modules will be left out for an extended period of time waiting to be ginned. He says the newest technology for cotton harvsted- the round modules(they look like a round bale of hay) can handle moisture better than the older modules that look like a huge loaf of bread in the fields.
Dr. Boman told Hays that cotton acreage in Oklahoma has grown a lot in those traditional southwest Oklahoma counties in the last couple of years after the drought conditions experienced in the 2010- 2013 era- but that we have also seen interest in cotton grow in southeast Oklahoma, the Panhandle and north central Oklahoma. That has brought a lot of farmers into cotton production who are having to learn that cotton is a different animal compared to the grain crops they grow- Boman saying "cotton is not a grain crop- it's a beast of it's own- it is a perennial plant that actually believes it is going to be there next year- and so it behaves differently than a lot of other broad leaf crops." He urges farmers that have included cotton in their production mix(or are thinking about it) to put January 17, 2018 on their calendar- that will be the "Cotton Day" at the Red River Crops Conference that rotates between Oklahoma and Texas annually- in 2018 that meeting will be in Altus and Dr. Boman says that will be the best cotton production meeting you can attend that will be held in Oklahoma ahead of the 2018 growing season- Dr. Boman says save the date.
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