A website from UGA Cooperative Extension

News, events, and happenings in Colquitt County agriculture.

When are the Colquitt County Production meetings?

The 2025 Georgia Peanut Farm Show is scheduled for Thursday, January 16, at the UGA Tifton Campus Conference Center in Tifton, GA. The show opens at 8:00 a.m. and ends at 2:30 p.m. Peanut farmers and those involved in the peanut industry will be able to learn more about the latest products, services and peanut research at the show, which is sponsored by the Georgia Peanut Commission. For more information go to the following link: https://gapeanuts.com/farm-show/

When is the UGA Corn Short Course? The 2025 Corn Short Course will be held January 21, at the UGA Conference Center in Tifton, Ga.

Click here for the full agenda. 

You can register at this link..


I am looking for the UGA OVT data for cotton and peanuts, where are they located? The UGA OVT data for cotton and peanuts are located at this link.


2024 Georgia Quality Cotton Awards

The 2024 Georgia Quality Cotton Awards will be given during the Georgia Cotton Commission Mid-Year Meeting lunch on July 24, 2025, at Georgia Southern University Nessmith-Lane Conference Center in Statesboro, GA. This will be the 20th year of this awards program to recognize producers and gins of high-quality cotton in Georgia. Producers are nominated by the gin and through the county Extension agent. These awards are sponsored by the Georgia Cotton Commission and administered by the UGA Cotton Team.  Nominations are due no later than February 17, 2025.

Any questions can be directed to Yangxuan Liu, 229-386-3512 or Yangxuan.Liu@uga.edu. For more information, contact your local County Extension Agent.

Click on the links below to download award information, instructions, and the nomination form.

2024 Georgia Quality Cotton Awards Instructions

2024 Georgia Quality Cotton Awards Nomination Form


Good News for U.S. Producers… Now What?

Thursday, January 2, 2025, By: Outlaw, Joe, and Bart L. Fischer, Texas A and M.

The final days of 2024 brought great news and some certainty for our cash-strapped farmers from our nation’s capital.  Disaster and economic losses were included in the continuing resolution that was passed by Congress and signed into law on December 21st by President Biden. H.R. 10545 (the American Relief Act) extended federal spending and averted a government shutdown through March 14, 2025. It also provided farmers additional certainty by extending the provisions of the 2018 Farm Bill through September 30, 2025.  The bipartisan CR passed the U.S. House and Senate by votes of 366-34 and 85-11 respectively.  With all of this said, we had hoped and expected Congress would act to provide assistance to agricultural producers, and they delivered. Well done and thank you!

The “now what?” is…how will the assistance be implemented?  Since the bill passed, lenders from across the U.S. have been emailing and calling asking how much of the projected economic assistance payments should they realistically be including in producer loan packages. Of the $30.78 billion authorized by the supplemental, $10 billion is set aside for economic assistance with the rest targeted toward physical disaster losses. Congress provided detailed instructions on how the economic assistance should be distributed by USDA.  The final bill was largely the same as we described in a previous Southern Ag Today article.  As indicated in the footnote below the individual commodity payment rates in the previous article, “Commodities estimated to receive minimum payment, either through formula with complete data or based on assumption due to lack of publicly available data, final payment rates may vary”.  

This means that you and your banker probably shouldn’t include the listed payment rates multiplied by your crop acres in your loan as economic disaster loss payments. There is a finite amount of money to be shared among producers of the 21 covered crops, and if USDA’s estimates on the minor crops end up being significantly different, even though the acreages are not large it could lead to somewhat lower payment rates across the board.

In our opinion, based on years of watching programs get implemented by USDA, we would suggest that 85 percent of those rates should be the lowest amount lenders should use.  We can’t imagine payment rates being adjusted more than that. Further, the act called for the economic aid to be distributed no later than 90 days following enactment (or March 21, 2024), so the payment rates should be known before many (though certainly not all) producers start planting.


Four Questions the 2025 Cattle Market Will Need to Answer Kenny Burdine  UK Extension Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Trends are always difficult to ascertain coming out of holiday periods as many markets are closed and volumes tend to be pretty light, but cattle prices have started 2025 very strong. While questions exist on the demand side, tight cattle supplies will remain the primary driver in the new year and should continue to support prices. And as always, weather will have a significant impact on feed and forage availability and cattle marketing patterns. As I write this article in early January, I want to discuss four questions that I think will be important for the 2025 cattle market to answer.

Will we start to see significant heifer retention? – This question has been circulating for the better part of the last two years. There are a lot of reasons why retention has been delayed including weather, production costs and interest rates. But market conditions should be very favorable again and I do think heifer retention could be seen in 2025 if weather cooperates. When heifer retention does pick up, it will further tighten supplies of cattle as those females are held out of the marketing system. This will be the first stage of growing this cowherd, which is currently at a 60+ year low.

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I have done all these nematode samples. What do they mean? I have received a question or two about interpreting nematode sample reports and why it matters. Every year, the UGA Department of Plant Pathology estimates losses from various diseases across various commodities. Table 1 shows that nematodes have cost Georgia corn, cotton and peanut growers over $141 million dollars due to damage and the additional cost of controlling them. Information on how these estimates are calculated is in the 2022 Georgia Plant Disease Loss Estimates publication.

Table 1. The % Reduction in Crop Value, Damage, Cost of Control and Total loss ($ Millions) from nematodes in 3 Georgia Crops, 2022.

Crop% Reduction in Crop ValueDamage ($ Millions)Cost of Control ($ Millions)Total ($ Millions)
Corn5%26.11.527.6
Cotton5%65.615.881.4
Peanut3%23.38.232.5
Total11525.5141.5

The threshold for cotton is below and the results are based on number of nematodes per 100cc of soil. If you have questions about interpreting nematode sample results, please contact you local county agent or go to the Guide for Interpreting Nematode Assay Results

If you have questions please contact your local county Extension agent.