With Summer officially beginning June 21, Hockley County Extension Agent Kerry Siders says high temperatures are important for a successful cotton crop season.
“The biggest hurdle is these cool temperatures,” Siders said. “Look at yesterday, the forecast was for the mid 80s and we barely got to the mid 70s. We were below 70 degrees until just shortly after 1p.m. and that is not cotton growing weather. Ideally, it’d be in the low to mid 90s every day from here on. For the sake of this cotton plant to match up with this moisture we need really good temperatures.”
Siders explained that low temperatures will delay the growth of crops potentially pushing the length of the grow season into early Fall. This could have an effect on the amount, quality and value of the cotton crop.
“We have to have very consistent day and night time temperatures. We need night time temperatures to be above 60 degrees and that ideally in that 65-degree range and then our daytime temperature to be between 90 and 95,” Siders said. “That typically provides us a solid 20 heat units a day. We’re behind on heat units currently; early in the season you can kind of make up for units as we move into June, July and August, but really to get too far behind is a problem that only a long season, where you have an exceptional late September into October to kind of make up for being late. It causes problems with the quality of the cotton and we can still have fairly good yields but we gotta be careful about the quality of the cotton and the and the value of it.”
Siders said high temperatures are key in preventing and killing diseases cotton crops may get by having delayed growth.
“This cotton is just sat there in many situations and that makes it very susceptible to all sorts of injuries from insects to disease and all sorts of problems occur when it’s just kind of parked they’re not making progress in its growth,” Siders said. “It delays that maturity at the end of the season; every day that we lose here up front can be a week at the end of the season. In terms of disease, it’s really not anything that good, warm sunshiny weather won’t cure.”
Siders explained that even though there has been more rainfall overall in Hockley County, the county is still in a drought.
“There are areas in Hockley County that received substantial rainfall, but if you just look at Levelland proper, from the first of May through the first week of June we received right at four inches,” Siders said. “That period from the first of May to the first of June was some of the wettest in history for many communities. For Levelland it wasn’t even in the top 20.”
Siders said those not growing cotton should consider growing sorghum instead of corn given the current weather conditions.
“We’ve had some rain and we’ve had some cooler temperatures, but the forecast is calling for higher temperatures here real soon,” Siders said. “Corn needs higher humidity to pollinate and produce a good ear of corn and so sometimes the risk of growing corn with our water resources in Hockley County is probably not always a good match. Sometimes we may not have as many choices, and we tend to get drawn into corn but I think right now if I was going to an alternative crop I’d be thinking grain sorghum or a forage sorghum.”