By Clint Thompson
The Georgia Cotton Commission (GCC) and University of Georgia (UGA) Cotton Team advise growers about harvesting this year’s crop amid the prolonged dry conditions across the Southeast.
Camp Hand, UGA Extension cotton agronomist, spoke about the drought and its impact on late-planted cotton.
“In terms of how dry it is, there’s not much we can do about that. I have gotten some questions about defoliating some of this dry land cotton. It’s going to be a little bit bigger concern, especially when we get into some of this June-planted stuff where the drought really hit us pretty hard,” Hand said. “Defoliating dry land cotton, the best thing to do is business as usual and hope that we get a rain sometime before we’ve got to knock the leaves off of that. That June cotton is starting to open, but we’ve still got a little bit of time before we knock the leaves off.”
Georgia’s extreme drought is seen in Seminole, Decatur, Miller, Baker, Mitchell, Grady, Thomas, Brooks, Colquitt, Worth and Tift counties. Severe drought in the southwest part of the state starts in Early County and extends eastward to Brantley, Wayne and Appling counties. Severe drought is also seen in the western part of the state, starting in Chattahoochee and Marion counties and stretching northward to Douglas and Cobb counties.