Early season insect control may result in cotton that can be harvested earlier. If harvesting can be advanced one week, it can be completed 27 calendar days earlier. Yield will be increased by 7% an revenue by 9% even though no additional cotton is available for harvesting.

Beginning October 5, 1984, rainfall was measured at Stoneville, Mississippi for sixteen consecutive days. A total of 10.99 inches or 447% of the average for October (2.40 inches) was recorded. After the rains ceased, an additional three to six days were required before cotton pickers could enter the fields. Therefore, approximately three weeks were lost at the height of our normal harvest season. Some producers had harvested more than one-half of their crop before these rains. Many producers had not started harvest.

Estimates in the popular literature of the yield loss due to these rains ranged from 250-400 pounds of lint per acre. An ad hoc telephone survey conducted by Parvin in early November of producers in the Mississippi Delta known to keep excellent yield records and who were harvesting prior to October 5 put the loss at approximately 250 pounds of lint per acre. The October 1 estimate of Mississippi yield (877 pounds per acre) released by the Mississippi Crop and Livestock Reporting Service was reduced by 13 percent to 762 pounds. These potential losses renewed farmers' interest in cotton that could be harvested earlier.