Agfax
Cotton News
Just an hour and forty-fives south of the Iowa state line, 15-year-old Garrett Heil’s cotton is a testament to the determination of a remarkable farmer not old enough to qualify for a driver’s license. Heil has succeeded in producing cotton deep in the pocket of the Midwest.
Big cotton is in the harvest cards, according to USDA’s latest report. Low commodity prices for corn, grain sorghum and soybeans pulled in more cotton acreage in 2017, and the numbers are reflected in USDA’s latest estimates.
In 2014, Nathan Reed fought for financial breath even after skinning inputs one by one. No matter how he shifted the figures, the pencil always pointed to the glaring expense of biotech seed. With an eye on cost control, he began switching portions of his ground to non-GMO production supported by a minimum till cover crop scheme, and the change led to farm-wide profitability.
Reports of dicamba drift incidents are pouring in and producer concerns are mounting, particularly with the echoes of 2016 still fresh across farmland. Pared down, the damage is alarming and there are plenty of passes left in the spray season.
Dicamba faces a potential immediate and total row crop use ban, pending approval by the plant board and a further green light from Arkansas Gov. Hutchinson.
On the doorstep of an immediate in-crop use ban, the dicamba issue is hanging in limbo after a roller coaster ride.
U.S. agriculture has a tremendous amount of skin at stake in an off-the-radar fight that may impact the future of groundwater regulations at federal, state and private levels.
After an early planting kick-start to the crop season, torrential rains blanketed northeast Arkansas and Missouri Bootheel farmland in late April and early May. The flood disaster raises a tangle of questions about crop insurance, risk and water management.
With alarm bells ringing in multiple states over confirmed PPO-resistant pigweed, is the weed control cavalry expected in soybean fields anytime soon? Bolstered by new technologies, help might be on the way within the next five years.
Two Bootheel farmers with a match of tousled hair, blue eyes and easy manner may be the most unique brother and sister farming operation in the United States.