Brad Haire of the Southeast Farm Press reported this week that periods of dry weather punctuated by downpours led to problems with establishment of cotton around the state. He quoted Jared Whitaker, UGA Cotton Specialist, as saying “The planting window was very dry during most of the period but interrupted with big rainfall events. With dry conditions, cotton is often ‘dusted in’ or planted very shallow in very dry soil. This practice can work very well, but is often not best practice when planting. First, in this case it has to rain to germinate seed, and rainfall patterns following dusting in cotton are critical to getting a stand,” he said.
Heavy rain after planting drove the seeds deeper and formed a crust on the soil that was difficult for the new seedlings to push through. You can read more about it here.
