By Clint Thompson
Dry weather, cotton jassid management, marketing strategies and regulatory processes – all are issues impacting the cotton industry. All were highlighted during Wednesday’s Georgia Cotton Commission’s Mid-Year Meeting and University of Georgia (UGA) Cotton Pre-Harvest Workshop.
Taylor Sills, executive director of the Georgia Cotton Commission, discussed the event this year, which was held at the Nessmith-Lane Conference Center in Statesboro, Georgia.
“I think it’s a great, kind of a status update of our programs through the year. We do an annual meeting and everything we do, we’re partnering with UGA Extension. But in this meeting, there’s things going on in the middle of the year that people need to know about,” Sills said. “From the UGA perspective, when they do their updates in the winter meetings and our annual meeting (in January), the whole idea is that in a perfect situation, you need to do X-Y-Z to get through the year.
“Here we are on July 29, obviously nothing’s ever perfect. So, it allows for some recommendations on things to get through the year, given where we are to date. And it’s a good opportunity to just connect with the industry. We do it in a different part of the state. We do that for a reason. And it’s been a great event that we’ve done, and we’ve got a tremendous amount of support from sponsors and very excited about the whole deal over here.”
Drought Impact
One of the main talks centered on this year’s crop, which is currently experiencing a prolonged dry spell across the state, said Camp Hand, UGA Extension cotton agronomist.
“Right now, we’re looking at a lot of really, really dry pockets. Down in southwest Georgia, it’s not quite as dry. But over here in East Georgia, I’ve seen some cotton, that’s some stuff you would expect to see in West Texas,” Hand said. “I mean, it’s really, really dry over here, and we need a rain pretty bad to get this crop back going.”