Chinese genetic engineers have bred a new strain of cotton that incorporates rabbit DNA to give the lint some of the qualities of rabbit fur, according to a news report that Reuters picked up from China's Xinhua news agency last week.

The plant looks much the same as ordinary cotton, but the fiber was as "bright and as soft as rabbit hair," according to the news service reports. A test by the China Textile University and the Ministry of Agriculture's Cotton Quality Inspection Center found the new fiber to be stronger, warmer and 60 percent longer than ordinary fiber.

Researchers at the Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology said the new strain, produced by using rabbit keratin genes, could account for up to 10 percent of China's cotton output "in the near future," according to Xinhua.

The rabbit cotton research began in 1997, according to Xinhua, and the new strain is now growing on experimental farms. It  could be used on a larger scale in one or two years, the news agency reported.

Weeds are in hot water in North Carolina town
This report comes to us via PANUPS, an online newsletter from the Pesticide Action Network, an environmental group. It has been edited. --cgc

Carrboro, N.C., is killing weeds with water instead of chemicals. The town is using a machine that superheats water and
dispenses it in a carefully controlled stream to kill weeds without using toxic chemical herbicides. The equipment, which is made in New Zealand, is in use in several other countries but is almost unknown in the United States.

Carrboro is testing the equipment to implement the town's least toxic Integrated Pest Management policy, adopted in March 1999. The policy calls for phasing out use of conventional pesticides, including herbicides, on town property, but does not apply to the local residents, their property or businesses.

...To date, efforts to reduce pesticide use have emphasized alternatives to conventional herbicides. An earlier analysis of Carrboro's pest management practices showed that more pesticides were used on weeds than for any other purpose. Weeds are a problem around buildings and parking lots, along curbs and gutters and in parks. The town is using a comprehensive approach, rather seeking a single solution, including a biodegradable herbicide made from corn gluten, propane flamers which
kill plants by singing them, thick mulch on plant beds to smother weeds, and now hot water.

The machine in use in Carrboro produces a steady stream of near-boiling water that kills weeds by melting the waxy outer coating of their leaves. The self-contained machine is mounted on a small truck with hoses connected to long-handled applicator wands. A quick spray on unwanted weeds kills them; the plants darken almost immediately and turn brown within a few hours. The flow of water is low and cools quickly. While the results look very much like that of a contact herbicide, there is no toxic residue and the area is immediately safe for play.

"That's what it is all about," said Allen Spalt, director of the Agricultural Resources Center and a member of the Carrboro Board of Aldermen. "We want to find ways to reduce pesticide use so that we can eliminate the risk of any child being poisoned. Carrboro already uses only small amounts of pesticides; we believe that this hot water system may be part of the solution to reducing use completely."

The hot water system, on loan to Carrboro until the end of June, will be used by town staff, who will also demonstrate it for other interested parties. At the conclusion of the trials, a final decision will be made whether or not the town will purchase the equipment.
 

Make plans for Milan
In quick-speak, it's usually called the Milan No-Till Field Day. The brochure, however, identifies it as the University of Tennessee's Milan No-Till Crop Production Field Day & Equipment Demonstrations. Whatever you call it, it's Thursday at the north tract of the Milan Experiment Station in Milan, Tenn. That's about 20 miles north of Jackson, Tenn., on U.S. 45. It's about 100 miles northeast of Memphis and 145 miles southwest of Nashville. This is the 19th year of the field day, and the event has grown each year. Last year it drew 5,800 people, making it comparable to -- if not bigger than -- the Beltwide Conferences. Of course, it includes crops other than cotton, but if you want to know anything about no-till cotton, this is the place to learn it.

The field day this year includes 12 research tours starting at 7 a.m. Tours run concurrently, with the last leaving at 3:30 p.m. The organizers advise arriving early if you plan to take several of the tours. Each tour takes about an hour and a half, although the time varies with the number of stops, the time spent asking and answering questions and how long it takes people to get back on the trailer after each stop. Each stop is planned to last about 20 minutes.

The tours are:

Certified pesticide applicators may earn points toward recertification by participating in the research tours. Sign up at the registration tents around the site. Certified crop advisors may earn continuing education points. Sign up at the assembly area for each tour.

Tent sessions are planned in which five experts in different areas will explore different aspects of the theme, Surviving and Thriving in the Next Century. The entire presentation is expected to last 1 hour and 40 minutes. Times are 7 a.m., 9 a.m., 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Presenters are:
 

Between tours, you can browse close to 150 commercial displays and more than 20 educational displays. You'll also enjoy the Antique Tractor and Engine show on the Field Day grounds. Many makes of tractors and engines will be on display, and trophies will be awarded for Best of Show, Most Tractors Exhibited by an Individual, and Exhibitor Traveling the Longest Distance. A different set of tractors will show their stuff Thursday evening at the 6th annual Milan No-Till Tractor Pull. Pulling starts at 7 p.m. at the Milan Motor Sports track, 2 miles off U.S. 45 on Tennessee 187.

West Tennessee Women for Cotton will model American cotton fashions during the luncheon program at 11:30 at Milan Elementary School on U.S. 45 in Milan. There is no charge for the lunch, but reservations are required. Call 901-686-7494 or 901-686-7362.

Related events continue through Saturday with the Super Ride and Crank It Up Contest, No-Till Stock Car Races and Milan Saddle Club Horse Show.

Just so you won't confuse their town with the one in Italy, the Milaners pronounce it MY-lan.

Aug. 12
Cancellations impact eastern cotton
EPA announced Monday that use of the pesticide azinphos-methyl in cotton has been canceled  east of the Mississippi River and its other uses severely curtailed. The agency announced at the same time that use of methyl parathion will be canceled for most fruits and vegetables. The agency said it had accepted the changes made voluntarily by the manufacturers.

Bayer Corp. is the major U.S. manufacturer of azinphos-methyl, marketing the product as Guthion. Cheminova Inc. markets methyl parathion as Novafos-M, while Elf Atochem produces methyl parathion as Penncap-M.

EPA had been under pressure from environmental groups to cancel the use of both pesticides in food, with particular attention to exposure in children. Both pesticides “can overstimulate the nervous system causing nausea, dizziness, confusion, and at high exposures, respiratory paralysis and death,” according to EPA fact sheets on the pesticides.

“The reductions EPA is making today will address the unique risks children face when exposed to pesticides,” the agency said in announcing the new restrictions. “For example, it is known that some pesticides pose a greater risk to infants and children because their bodies and internal organs are still developing, which makes them much more susceptible to the effects of pesticides. Children also ingest greater quantities of food and drink relative to their body weight, as compared to adults, which increases their exposure to pesticides.”

The agency also cited exposure risk to farm workers and risk of environmental contamination, particularly with azinphos-methyl. “Azinphos-methyl poses unacceptable risks to birds, aquatic invertebrates, fish, and terrestrial mammals,” the fact sheet on the pesticide says. “It poses a very high risk to aquatic organisms, perhaps the highest among all the organophosphate pesticides.
Azinphos-methyl is also one of the most persistent of the organophosphates applied foliarly.”

In addition to the cotton cancellation, azinphos-methyl is also being canceled in all sugarcane, ornamental, Christmas tree, forest tree and shade tree uses, and its U.S. production is being capped. “The cap is intended to prevent use of other pesticides shifting to azinphos-methyl as a result of other actions, such as the cancellation of many uses of methyl parathion.”

Azinphos-methyl will have reduced application rates and lower allowable residues on apples, pears and quince.

The change eliminates the use of methyl parathion on apples, peaches, pears, grapes, nectarines, cherries, plums, carrots, succulent peas, succulent beans, tomatoes, artichokes, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, celery, collards, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, mustard greens, rutabagas, spinach and turnips, as well as ornamentals, grasses grown for seed, mosquito abatement and nursery stock.

Remaining uses for methyl parathion are alfalfa, almonds, barley, cabbage, corn, cotton, dried beans, dried peas, grass, hops, lentils, oats, onions, pecans, rape seed (canola), rice, rye, soybeans, sugar beets, sunflower, sweet potato, walnuts, wheat and white potatoes.

EPA countered the impact of the new restrictions on growers by noting that it has recently registered “47 new, safer pesticides that can serve as lowers alternatives to more toxic pesticides, such as the organophosphates.”

EPA is reviewing all pesticide registrations under the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act. The agency laid out an 18-month schedule for completing its review of all the organophosphates and said it also would target atrazine, aldicarb and carbofuran, among others, during the next year and a half.

The agency also said it was challenging pesticide manufacturers to come forward with voluntary risk-reduction measures similar to those announced Monday.

Aug. 30
Meet me in Memphis and let's talk about Bt
EPA and USDA are hosting a one-day workshop on genetically engineered cotton Thursday at the Airport Sheraton in Memphis. It promises to be informative. Sessions will focus on four areas:

resistance management

refuge design and deployment

education and compliance

monitoring and remedial action

If you plan to attend, you can prepare by reading the questions panelists have been asked to address, along with EPA's position paper on Bt resistance management. You can register online; there is no registration fee.

If you can't make it, a report of the workshop will be posted here early next week, and you can read the proceedings on the EPA website.
 

Bret update: Could have been much worse
By Roger Haldenby, Plains Cotton Growers Inc.

"It's not anywhere as bad as it could have been." That's the conclusion from several sources in South Texas referring to Hurricane Bret.

Hurricane Bret was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm Tuesday morning, but its threat of þoods and tornadoes continues.

Almost all the 1999 Lower Rio Grande Valley cotton crop is harvested and already ginned, so this weather phenomenon has had little effect on LRGV cotton. Further north into the South Texas/Winter Garden region it's estimated that only 10% or so of the 400,000 cotton acres remains unharvested. However, many modules are still in fields awaiting transport to area gins. It
will be seen in the next few days what damage may have occurred to these modules and to the
unharvested acreage.

Rainfall reports vary from over 24 inches in Kenedy county, headquarters of the massive King Ranch to just a couple of inches in the Victoria area. Around Corpus Christi 4-5 inches have been recorded. The heaviest rains in Kenedy county are said to have fallen mostly over open rangeland causing minimal damage.

Texas officials are reviewing the damage caused by Hurricane Bret as it came ashore. The weather services consider a threat of flooding still exists for many areas. Seven Texas counties have been declared federal disaster areas due to damage caused by Hurricane Bret.

No deaths or serious injuries are reported. 125 mile per hour winds were reported as the hurricane hit the coast Sunday evening between Corpus Christi and Brownsville Texas.  The National Weather service initially thought Corpus Christi would take a direct hit but the city of 300,000 residents escaped major damage. Gusts of 73 miles per hour were reported there and although they saw heavy rain combined with a storm surge, no serious flood damage has been noted.

Hurricane Bret is said to be the biggest hurricane to hit Texas in twenty years but luckily it did not turn out to be the hurricane of the century that some were predicting.

Bret's aftermath: A report from the Coastal Bend
South Texas producer Jimmy Dodson offers this report on the impact of Hurricane Bret.
It is forwarded by Roger Haldenby of Plains Cotton Growers Inc.

Bret was indeed not as bad as it could have been. No loss of life and limited serious damage to homes is about as good as it gets with a class 4 storm.

While most of the cotton in the STWG zone was in, about 50 percent of the crop was still on the stalk in southern Nueces and Kleberg counties. These areas had excessive rainfall in March and July which delayed the crop. Yields had been running about 2 bales per acre, ranging from 1.5 to near 3 bales in Nueces County, with some reports of over 3 bales. We were beginning to visualize the potential for cotton grown without economic pressure from the boll weevil.

Producers here were relishing the thought of record yields, after experiencing the worst drought in 50 years in 1996, a complete growing season in 1998 with no measurable rain, and continued low prices since 1997. Pickers ran all night on Saturday, trying to beat the storm, which had been forecast to miss the area entirely only hours before. Some individual producers had not even
started their harvest, and many were less than 50 percent harvested.

We all are thankful that our families and homes are intact, but the storm dealt many producers and some gins a terrible blow at a time when few can stand it.

Dodson serves on the board of directors of the South Texas Cotton and Grain Association and is  chairman of the National Cotton Council's Environmental Task Force.
 

Early, but not excellent
Mississippi and Louisiana are far ahead of the other states in total crop maturity, according to USDA's weekly Crop Progress report. Mississippi has 54 percent of its crop with opening bolls, while Louisiana has 46 percent. The next closest states are Missouri with 29 percent and Arizona with 24 percent.

This year's earliness in those does not necessarily high quality, however. In Mississippi, only 9 percent is rated excellent and 7 percent is rated very poor. In Louisiana, 4 percent is rated excellent while 3 percent is very poor. Missouri has 5 percent excellent and 11 percent very poor. Arizona, on the otherhand, has 17 percent excellent and only 1 percent very poor.

The only ginning USDA reports so far has been in Texas. The next ginning report is due Sept. 10.
 

Crop estimate falls 400,000 bales
U.S. cotton growers will produce 18.3 million 480-pound bales, up 32 percent from 1998 but down 400,000 bales from last month, according to USDA’s August cotton production forecast. Yield is expected to average 649 pounds per harvested acre, up 24 pounds from last year.

The forecast is about a million bales short of what many analysts had expected. An informal survey of subscribers to the Cotton-L discussion group resulted in an average estimate of 19.01 million bales, although the individual estimates ranged from 18.3 million to 19.3 million bales.

 Excessive heat has resulted in some stress to cotton, the USDA report points out. Producers expect to harvest 13.5 million acres, 27 percent above last year's drought-reduced harvested acreage. Upland accounts for 13.2 million harvested acres, 26 percent above 1998. American-Pima harvested acreage is estimated at 316,200 acres, 35 percent above last year. Upland cotton production is forecast at 17.6 million 480-pound bales, a 31 percent increase from 1998. Pima cotton production is forecast at 667,600 480-pound bales.

The forecast for domestic mill use is reduced slightly based on sluggish consumption in recent months, according to the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate, also released today. The export estimate is unchanged. Ending stocks are down 300,000 bales, bringing the projected stocks-to-use ratio down to 35 percent. This month's world cotton estimates reflect lower production and ending stocks relative to last month. Production is reduced 1.5 percent, due to reductions in China, the United States, Uzbekistan and Argentina. With the world consumption and trade estimates virtually unchanged, world stocks are projected at 42.3 million bales, down 1.1 million from last month.

Let the ginning begin
In fact, it already has. Texas had ginned 80,650 bales as of Aug. 1, according to USDA's August Cotton Ginnings report. That accounts for the total amount ginned in the United States so far this season. It compares with 145,550 bales ginned at the same time last year and 2,200 in 1997. With that much variation, even a five-year average would not establish a meaningful "normal" figure.

FQPA -- More to come
Reductions in the availability of two older organophosphate insecticides announced last week is expected to have minimal impact in cotton. The industry is not breathing easy, however, as products that more widely used for cotton crop protection come under review in the next 18 months. 

Both products had been available for boll weevil control but had been replaced, for the most part, by malathion. All the eastern states have boll weevil eradication programs which make mandatory applications of malathion. Growers and consultants in several of those states reported that BWEP applications also do a good job of suppressing other insects either azinphos-methyl or methyl parathion otherwise might be used to control.

“Certainly there will be an impact,” says Georgia consultant Edgar Hood. “Loss of azinophos-methyl will hurt us in boll weevil control. It has a longer field life than methyl parathion, and at higher rates continues to be effective. However, there is little use of it nowadays, due to the wide-area spraying of malathion in the eradication program. But, one hates to lose big guns out of the arsenal.

“As for methyl parathion,” Hood continues, “we can’t afford to lose that one. What else is going to control the brown stink bug? He and the fall armyworm will become major pests after the (BWEP) spraying is finished. This has happened in other areas in the Southern Cotton Belt. Synthetic pyrethroids are only marginally effective on the brown stink bugs, but do have fairly good control on the green stink bug. Let’s hope we can mount a concerted effort to keep methyl parathion on broad-acre crops (cotton, rice, soybeans, etc.).”

Carl Hobbs, another Georgia crop consultant, says his growers use “somewhere between very little (azinphos-methyl) and almost none since the weevil left, at least where cotton is concerned. … I don’t see how we will miss it on cotton or peanuts. We have other chemistries that we can choose from.”

Hobbs expects to recommend small amounts of methyl parathion in late August or early September “if stink bugs are present,” but he reserves its use for the late season.

Mississippi Delta grower Sledge Taylor says, “If this had happened five years earlier, it would have caused a lot of problems.” Now, however, he doesn’t see much impact. “Since we are now in the boll weevil eradication zone, I have not bought either material in three years,” he says. “Methyl is a good plant bug material also, but the ULV malathion in oil that they use in boll weevil eradication has done a good job of keeping the plant bugs suppressed.

“Of course no one knows what problems will crop up in the future, but there are materials that we can use to replace the two lost — they just cost a little more. Over the years I have noticed that we do not lose the expensive chemicals — usually only the older and cheaper ones.”

Restrictions previously imposed on the way Guthion could be applied had convinced many growers it was not worth the effort, Lula, Miss., consultant Joe Townsend points out. “Guthion now has very limited use with my growers. This is because there are better and cheaper alternatives. The closed system containers required for its use  makes it impractical and expensive for the farmers. It’s probably not going to impact what we do at all.”

With so little anticipated on-farm impact, the National Cotton Council is giving its attention to the review process and the attendant potential loss of other, more critical, products. “The NCC is concerned about the number of choices of pest control products producers may end up with and the effect of such changes on pesticide prices,” says Council entomologist Frank Carter. “Smaller markets and more restrictions will likely be passed on to the producer in higher prices for pesticide products.”

The Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 sets new standards for pesticides and requires that all existing crop protection chemicals come under review. Next in line are the carbamates, a class that includes aldicarb (Temik) and carbofuran (Furadan). “The carbamates will be coming up for review as soon as the OP process begins to wind down,” says Carter. “Since both OPs and carbamates are cholinesterase inhibitors, the review of carbamates may go a lot faster than OPs” because the established review process will work for carbamates as well, Carter says.

To ensure that all “stakeholders” have a say in making the process fair, a Tolerance Reassessment Advisory Committee was formed to make recommendations on the process to the EPA administrator and the secretary of agriculture. Unrest is growing on the ag side, however, as complaints arise that the TRAC’s recommendations are not being followed.

“The TRAC committee has worked to develop a process for reviewing the OPs,” relates Carter, “but this action has strayed from that process.”

On Aug. 3, the day after EPA announced the restrictions on azinphos-methyl and methyl parathion, the House Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry criticized the way EPA is implementing FQPA, charging that it can have deleterious health effects.

“Abuse of process, reluctance to incorporate agreed upon procedures for evaluating scientific evidence, blatant disregard for a process which envelops all the stakeholders’ interests and hasty implementation potentially affects all of us — both those needing pesticides to fight disease-carrying insects as well as the farmers relying on a myriad of
diverse pesticides for crop production,” said subcommittee chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican.

“Anyone who has followed FQPA implementation can’t help but be disappointed by the irresponsible scare tactics demonstrated by special interest groups, and the lack of leadership we have seen in recent days on the part of policy makers,” said ranking member Charles Stenholm of Texas. “We would all do well to keep in mind that our nation continues to have the safest, most abundant, highest quality food, at the lowest cost to the consumer, of any nation in the world.”

See 'A Cotton Office' in New Orleans
If you visit New Orleans this summer, you'll see what is perhaps cotton's most famous painting on every street corner. Edgar Degas'  A Cotton Office in New Orleans is being used as the centerpiece of a summer exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art. 
The painting, on loan from Musee des Beaux-Arts, Pau, leads the display of the French Impressionist's work done while visiting the home city of his mother during 1872-73. The cotton office in the painting was owned by his uncle, Michel Musson, and the picture shows Degas' brothers, René and Achille, who lived in New Orleans and worked for their uncle.

Degas and New Orleans: A French Impressionist in America will be on display at the museum through Aug. 29. If you can't make it to New Orleans this month to see the original, you can hang a print of A Cotton Office in New Orleans in your own office. The museum store has high-quality prints available for $25 plus $4.50 shipping. Send a check or money order to the Museum Shop, New Orleans Museum of Art, P.O. Box 19123, New Orleans, La., 70179.
 

Sept. 9
Missouri's the place in September
The University of Missouri's Delta Research Center has three events scheduled in early September. They've even provided a map.

The 38th annual  Delta Center Field Day is Sept. 2, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Tours begin at 9:00 a.m. at the Lee Farm (7 miles southeast of Portageville at the junction of highways T and TT.)  Covered tour wagons will depart hourly. In case of rain, the Field Day will move indoors. Lunch is provided.

 

The Missouri Cotton variety tour is Sept. 15 at the UMC Delta Center in Portageville. Contact Dr. Bobby Phipps , the state extension cotton specialist, for details.

Sept. 14
No damage from Dennis
Hurricane Dennis swooning around the Carolina coast for a week had the potential to wreck the eastern cotton crop, but no damage has been reported. Rather, it appears that the much needed rainfall may have helped the crop and recharged groundwater, according to the Sept. 8 Weekly Weather and Crop Bulletin. Only 30 percent of North Carolina's crop and 31 percent of South Carolina's crop had bolls opening as of Sept. 5, according to the Sept. 7 Crop Progress report. That's within a few percentage points of the five-year averages for both states.

Georgia, too, with 46 percent of the crop with bolls opening, is keeping track with its five-year average. Proceeding west, the crop is cutting out early toward the middle of the Cotton Belt, the result of high temperatures and little rainfall, then falls off in the West, where temperatures have been low. Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri are all significantly ahead of their five-year averages. Texas and New Mexico also have early crops. Oklahoma, Arizona and California, however are far behind their five-year averages.

Sept. 20
Crop progressing
Texas is still the only state reporting cotton being ginned, with 561,000 bales ginned as of Sept. 1,
according to the Sept. 10 Cotton Ginnings report. This compares with 523,000 bales at the same time last year and 358,700 bales in 1997.

Other states should have some ginning nimbers in the Sept. 24 report. Mississippi shows 93 percent of its crop with bolls opening as of Sept. 12, in the Sept. 13 Crop Progress report. Tennessee has 89 percent, Louisiana 88 percent and Missouri 86 percent. The Midsouth crop is maturing earlier than normal, generally attributed to the hot, dry weather keeping the top bolls from developing. The East Coast crop is a little behind the five-year average and could be severely threatened by Hurricane Floyd. Crop development in the West has been hampered by cool weather and California is far behind its normal maturity.

Tennessee gets disaster aid
Ag Secretary Dan Glickman has declared all of Tennessee an agricultural disaster area. The designation makes low-interest USDA loans available to farmers in Tennessee, as well as those in  contiguous counties in adjacent states, to cover losses from excessive heat and drought.

This designation makes all family-sized farm operators in both primary and contiguous counties eligible for low-interest emergency loans from the Farm Service Agency. Farmers in eligible counties have eight months from the date of this declaration (Sept. 10) to apply for the loans to help cover part of their actual losses. FSA will consider each application on its own merits, taking into account the extent of losses, security available, repayment ability, and other eligibility requirements.

Several counties of Arizona, New Mexico and Virginia, and all of North Carolina and  South Carolina already have been declared disaster areas, and Texas and Missouri are also receiving drought aid, according to Glickman's office. Alabama and Missouri have pending applications for disaster status

Production estimate drops 4 percent
U.S. cotton production is forecast at 17.5 million 480-pound bales, down 4 percent from last month, due to adverse weather conditions affecting all areas except the far West, according to the latest World Agriculture Supply and Demand Estimate, published Sept. 10. However, the U.S. production figure is up 26 percent from 1998, according to USDA's September Crop Production report, and if realized, would result in the eighth-largest cotton crop on record.

Based on Sept. 1 conditions, yields are expected to average 621 pounds per harvested acre, down 28 pounds from last month's estimate. Condition of the cotton crop has deteriorated since last month in most of the cotton-producing states. Dry soils and above-normal temperatures have stressed dryland cotton. Harvested acreage, at 13.6 million acres, reflects an increase of 30,000 acres in Louisiana from last month.

Beginning U.S. stocks are raised 300,000 bales to 3.9 million, based on preliminary survey data from the Census Bureau. Forecast domestic mill use is reduced to 10.4 million bales, reflecting
reduced mill use in recent months and the same level as 1998-99. With exports unchanged from
last month, ending stocks are down 300,000 bales.

World cotton  production is down 1.6 million bales, reflecting reductions in the United States, India and Uzbekistan, combined with an increase for Pakistan. Forecast world consumption is raised slightly as increases for China, India and Russia more than offset the reduction in the United States. World trade is virtually unchanged. Despite higher beginning stocks in China and the United States, estimated world ending stocks are revised down 3 percent from last month's estimate to 41.1 million bales.

Pest management favorites: scouting and genetic engineering
If anything is surprising in the USDA's new survey of pest management practices,  it is that almost three-fourths of U.S. cotton acres were scouted for pests last year, on 65 percent of the nation's cotton farms -- not that the number is so high, but that it is not higher. In fruits and nuts, 82 percent of the acres are scouted,  and in vegetables 80 percent are scouted.

The survey, conducted in the fall of 1998 by USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, compared practices in all regions of the country and in most of the major crops.

In cotton, prevention practices, such as using tillage practices to manage pests, removing or plowing down crop residue, and cleaning implements after fieldwork were used on more than half the planted acres. Other practices, reported on 50 percent or more of the acres, were alternating pesticides, using records to keep track of pests, and using pheromones to monitor pests.

The practice showing the most change from the 1997 crop year to 1998 was the use of crop varieties that were genetically modified to resist insects or specific herbicides. For cotton varieties containing the Bt gene to resist insects, there was an increase of 9 percentage points, from 13 percent of the acres in 1997 to 22 percent in 1998. Use of cotton varieties engineered to resist herbicides jumped from 5 percent in 1997 to 34 percent in 1998.
 

Sept. 24
Water still hides Floyd's cotton damage
Damage estimates  to the cotton crops from Hurricane Floyd vary widely, and until the floodwater recedes, they're just guesses. Cotton economist O.A. Cleveland said in his weekly newsletter Sept. 17 that he'd seen loss estimates as high as 400,000 bales, but his own guess was that no more than 95,000 bales would be lost.

"Granted, I am sitting in a dry room, and a long way from the Carolinas and Virginia, but typical hurricane yield damage is far less than first reported," Cleveland said. "We simply will not know the extent of the damage until the flood water, completely covering some plants, drains and the stalks stand back up ... and the stalks will stand back up."

North Carolina agriculture commissioner James Graham said last week that disaster agents might be able to make reports by Tuesday, but an aide told the Associated Press Sunday that, "We're not even close to being ready to start looking at crops."

Graham said much of North Carolina's the 671,000 acres of cotton, which had been on track to produce 1.2 million bales, is under water. State officials are placing ag losses in the state at $1 billion or more.
 

Rain at the wrong time in Texas
While most of the attention has been focused on the East Coast, the Texas High Plains crop also has been inundated with water. Here's a report from Shawn Wade of Plains Cotton Growers Inc.:

With rainfall totals in some areas approaching 7 inches, cotton producers on the Texas High Plains can generally say enough is enough. Rainfall totals since Sept. 14 are reported to range from one-half inch in the southern portion of the area to more than 7 inches in some central and northern areas.

It really doesn't matter whether the crop in the field is late or ready to harvest, the rain and accompanying cool temperatures have not been beneficial either way.

To make matters worse, cotton in several areas has received significant hail damage, which is likely to result in the loss of thousands of acres and thousands of bales of production.

An actual tally of hail-affected cotton acreage probably will not be available for several days, as producers try to assess the total extent of the damage.

With the crop rapidly approaching the end of the line before the rains came, producers who had been busy preparing and applying harvest aid treatments are now going to be faced with the prospect of regrowth and reduced harvest aid effectiveness as they try to get the crop to a harvestable state.

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