By Clint Thompson
Cotton plantings will soon begin across South Georgia, and they’ll start amid exceptional drought conditions in some areas.
It’s less than an ideal scenario for growers who need adequate soil moisture to achieve proper plant stand establishment.
The Georgia Cotton Commission and Wes Porter, University of Georgia Professor in Crop and Soil Sciences, advise producers on how to proceed under these extreme circumstances. It may require some growers to plant deeper than they are accustomed to.
“If we don’t have irrigation, what we’re really going to have to consider at that point is adjusting our planting depth and seeing if we can chase some moisture,” Porter said. “What worries me on all the research I’ve done on planters and seed placement and stuff like that, if we’re in a hot, dry period, then we’re really going to struggle if we put that seed too shallow. What’s going to happen is that soil surface is going to be warm, we’ll have no moisture and it’s just going to sit out there. Cotton seed are just small and not as resilient as some of our larger seed like peanuts.
“It’s an extreme recommendation but when we are in that case and don’t have moisture, what we really have to do is plant it deeper than what we typically recommend so we can get in those cooler soil temperatures and down where there’s a little bit more sub-soil moisture and chase that moisture.”
Porter said he has planted as deep as an inch and a half in his research trials but would not recommend going deeper.
“Our typical planting depth is at an inch. We can push to about an inch and a quarter, inch and a half. If we go much deeper than that, we’re really going to start hindering emergence,” Porter said.