At Harvest: Focus On Cotton’s Profit Potential

By: Industry Voice by Bayer CropScience

If growers could pick one aspect of crop management that has the greatest impact on their success, most would choose timeliness. Here are three steps growers can take to maintain timeliness, preserve fiber quality and maximize yield:

Be efficient.

Understand when to defoliate.

“Timely and proper defoliation is critical to terminating a cotton crop for maximum yield and quality,” says Bayer senior technical service representative Keith Rucker. “If you defoliate too early, it can rob you of yield potential from bolls that are not ready to pick. If you are too late, you risk losses from boll rot and reduced lint quality.”

Rucker suggests the following when deciding when to apply harvest aids:

Count the total number of bolls on the plant and determine what percentage of them are open throughout the field. The Extension service in each state offers a recommended open boll percentage, at which growers should begin harvest.
Using a sharp knife, look at the unopened bolls to determine whether they are mature. “If the knife cuts clean through, it is immature,” Rucker says. “If it ‘strings’ and the lint pulls through with the knife, the boll is considered mature.”
Open the seeds in the bolls and determine if there are cotyledons inside the seed. Well-developed cotyledons inside the seed indicate a mature boll, ready for a harvest aid application.
Finally, count the number of nodes between the uppermost boll that is cracked and the first position boll that you expect to harvest. When there are four nodes above cracked boll, it is safe to apply harvest aids.