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Growing cotton on the High Plains of Texas entails many risks. Seedling disease, insects, and erratic rainfall are common to all producers, but the High Plains boasts some unique risks such as hail, blowing sand, and years when the growing season is shortened by early freeze or low heat unit accumulations throughout the growing year. Risk management, therefore, becomes very important for producers. The greatest risk for producing quality, good yielding, irrigated cotton year after year, is the relatively short growing season. Heat unit accumulation is relatively low, averaging around 2000 units; however, this average is made from years that vary widely. The ability to diminish the risk from low heat unit accumulations depends on being able to make use of all the heat units available. To do this, the producer must plant early and get the plant off to a fast and vigorous start, which is difficult in cool temperatures. Cotton planted in cool weather is very sensitive to seedling disease, root knot nematodes, Fusarium wilt complex, thrip and herbicide damage. Therefore, as the planting date is pushed up, these problems must be addressed. |
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©National Cotton Council, Memphis TN |
Document last modified Sunday, Dec 6 1998
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