2015 High Cotton Winners Honored

SAN ANTONIO – The 2015 Farm Press-Cotton Foundation High Cotton Awards recipients are: Southeast – Rick Morgan, Corapeake, N.C.; Mid-South – George LaCour, Morganza, La.; Southwest –Ronnie Hopper and his son, R. N. Hopper, Petersburg, Texas; and Far West – Mark Watte, Tulare, California. They and their families were honored here today during a breakfast at the National Cotton Council (NCC)-coordinated Beltwide Cotton Conferences.

The High Cotton Awards were initiated by Farm Press and the NCC 21 years ago as a way to demonstrate that cotton growers and their families are concerned about the environment and are the true stewards of their land, air and water. The program, which now has recognized 84 U.S. cotton producers, is supported by a grant to The Cotton Foundation from Farm Press Publications.

"The High Cotton Award winners are some of the best cotton producers in the nation," said Greg Frey, Farm Press Publications' publisher. "But they also do their utmost to protect the land, air and water. They represent the very best in environmental stewardship."

Each 2015 High Cotton winner has a distinct approach to environmental stewardship.

North Carolina's Morgan, for example, has been farming using reduced tillage practices for more than 20 years and went to 100 percent no-till 10 years ago.

"I'm a firm believer in the no-till system not only from a yield perspective, but also from the conservation perspective," Morgan said. "No-till allows me to not only preserve soil quality and decrease erosion and moisture loss but also burn less fuel, use smaller tractors and less equipment."

Morgan says no-till also makes his poorer land better by building organic matter but "the bottom line benefit of 100 percent no-till is water conservation.When you keep your water from running off your field, you also keep your nutrients from running off and you keep your nitrogen where it's supposed to be. No-till helps us do that so it's a win-win for everybody."

Louisiana's LaCour is re-working his land field-by-field to offset the effects of excessive rainfall and to irrigate more efficiently when it's dry. When he completes the land-forming process, he believes he will use less irrigation water and farm his fields with less fuel and labor.

Practicing reduced tillage for years, LaCour beds up his rows following harvest in the fall and doesn't touch them again until he makes his planting decisions the next spring. He says the reduced tillage strategy and the improved drainage and irrigation capability are part of an effort "to make sure our soils stay in place."

LaCour also leaves a portion of one of his fields in trees as part of a wildlife corridor that provides access to more habitat for the area's black bear population.

The Hoppers also are believers in no-till crop production, and they predict the practice will gain acceptance across the Texas High Plains as farmers deal with the increasingly serious problem of a declining water resource.

The Hoppers say they farm no-till cotton because of soil and water conservation, energy and labor savings, and replacing organic matter in the soil. They noted that technology, including herbicide resistant crops, improved planting/spray equipment and better varieties allowed them to plant no-till cotton. The result has been significant water conservation, improved soil and contributions to better yields.

Watte, a full-time farmer for 39 years, is mostly responsible for irrigation and agronomy on his San Joaquin Valley farm. Farming with his brother, Brian, Watt said a lesson they have learned over the years is to protect and utilize beneficial insects which prey on the cotton insect pests.

"We have always been very cognizant and aware of keeping beneficials intact as much as possible," Watte said. "It's embedded in us – it's just what we do."

Watte uses about 36 inches of water, or less, for cotton on the farm's Chino series clay loam soils. On the technology side, the Watte family was one of the first growers in the "neighborhood" to laser level farm ground (1979) which improved water uniformity in the fields.

More information on this year's High Cotton recipients, is at http://deltafarmpress.com.