The Tift County Fall Livestock Show will be Saturday at the Multipurpose Building behind the Extension Office. If you’re not busy come out and support the kids livestock projects. Here is what I have for the week.
Peanuts: I am still seeing some peanuts left but for the most part they are about over. Lesser Cornstalk Borers, Southern Corn Rootworm, and Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus turned out to be the main pest problems this year.
Cotton: This rain has slowed some defoliation. Remember that rain fastness for Prep is 6 hours, Folex is 1 hour and Dropp is 24 hours. I’ve been telling people to look a the next 3 days after you spray defoliant. What do those days look like because they are the most important? You want good sunshine for the better part of those 3 days for the defoliant to work effectively. We’re kind of in the mid-season range for defoliants, Prep (2 pts), Dropp (2-4 oz), and Folex (8-12 oz). Defoliation has been a struggle this year. Cotton has just been tougher because of the weather and that makes it harder to defoliate. It’s also harder to take the leaves off when the temperature is hot. When the plant is drought-stressed it simply won’t take up the defoliant. Currently, we have ginned about 83,000 bales across the state. To give you a little comparison, this time last year we had only ginned about 4500 bales. We are also way ahead of the past four-year average.