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AdvertisementCotton farmer credits team for successful crop
Ask Andy Wisdom what makes his West Texas cotton farm a success, and he will tell you the secret can't be found just in his soil or in any particular crop input. It's teamwork that makes his Levelland, Texas, cotton farm run like clockwork. "It's a team mentality with me," Wisdom said. "I'm very hands-on. I don't ask my people to do things that I wouldn't do myself. I can run any piece of equipment on this place, from the planter to the stripper. I have a great support system, from the people I work with to the people I farm for, and I can't do what I need to do out here without that support." This team concept works for this fifth generation cotton farmer, who consistently brings in yields in the 2 to 4 bale range year after year. Matching varieties to environment It's simple, but for Wisdom success begins with seed selection, and he looks for varieties that will yield well in the tough environment of the Texas cotton patch west of Lubbock. "We grow mainly FiberMax varieties, usually 9063 and 9180," Wisdom said. "We try to match our target yields with our available water." The varieties offer average boll sizes and seem to produce well on his pivot and drip irrigation fields. "We use all Flex BollGard 2 varieties," Wisdom explained. "We have to farm so many acres to make this work, and to cover the cost of our inputs. Flex cotton allows us to get into and out of our fields much faster and cover the acres better." He and his crew try to plant cotton beginning the first week of May. This past season they went into planting with very little stockpiled water from the winter. "We just didn't have a winter last year, and so we were planting into some pretty dry ground," Wisdom said. "We watered, and watered, and watered some more." Wisdom said drying 80 miles per hour winds made it difficult for his pivot irrigation to soak into the soil, or percolate up from the drip tape to the seed for germination. Wisdom classifies his acres as a combination of conventional and conservation tillage. "The drip tape is all no-till, but we still conventional till our pivots," he said. "We take it on a field-by-field basis. I still lean toward winter tillage hard." Hail storms caused Wisdom to have to replant about 500 to 600 acres of cotton to sorghum. A dry August complicated matters even more. "It won't be a bad crop, but we're managing what God gave us this year," Wisdom said. Managing inputs with advice Managing crop inputs is one aspect where Wisdom's team concept comes to play. He uses experts to help him with decisions that affect the growth of his crop. "Ronnie Alexander, with Ag Products helps me with my fertilizer program," Wisdom said. He also uses a consultant to identify pests in the field and help him time his Pix applications. "I have people who are smarter than me," Wisdom said. Wisdom likes to time his Pix with his first Roundup application, at a rate of about 4 to 6 ounces depending on rainfall, he said. "We've seen a little better results at that rate," he said. He added he splits his application duties with the local dealership so that he isn't stuck in one field and missing his other cotton acres. Wisdom hasn't seen weed resistance to herbicides in any of his fields, and he attributes this to actively managing his herbicide program. "We are careful to work within the label requirements of products," he said. And, he is sure to use two or three different products so that he's not overusing one product in any one field. His fertilizer program, which has been fine-tuned over 20 years of cotton production, is just as important. "We put out phosphorus and trace elements in the winter, pre-plant," he said. "We apply 65 percent of our nitrogen then, and then apply the rest of our nitrogen after planting either through the pivots or our drip tape." He added that he does occasional soil testing, but prefers to manage his acres in a constant, steady manner. "Instead of relying just on soil testing results, and applying according to them, I prefer to do a constant, steady program, year to year," he said. "That way, we aren't depleting the soils and having to rebuild them." Harvesting results "I suspect we'll start harvesting Oct. 2 or so, maybe Oct. 10 on the older cotton," Wisdom said. He and his team start watching for forecasts of hard fronts coming into the area, and try to apply their harvest aids seven to 10 days before those freezing conditions strike. He said he applies Finish, a harvest aid that accelerates leaf drop and boll opening, followed by Prep, a cotton defoliant. It usually takes Wisdom and his crews two weeks to harvest his farm. "I like to be on the cotton stripper each year, so I can see the highs and lows in the field," Wisdom said. He uses that time in the stripper to contemplate changes in his program for the following cotton season, always looking to improve. This harvest in the Texas cotton patch, though, may not break records this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Upland Cotton Production Estimates released Oct. 9. According to the report, yield survey results collected from Sept. 24 to Oct. 6 lowered the 2009 crop yield expectations, dropping projected yield in the High Plains by 330,000 bales. The area is now forecasted to produce about 3.79 million bales, and the state yield estimate has dropped to 5 million bales for 2009. "This won't be a high-end, bell-ringing crop because of the season, but it's good for the conditions we had," Wisdom said. "I suspect we'll still probably have 3 and half or two bale cotton on average." And at the end of the season, Wisdom said his most important teammate has been, and continues to be the Lord. "At the beginning of the day, and at the end of the day, it's not how good you are or where you've been or what you've done," he said. "Without God in life, it just doesn't work. My strong faith, the knowledge He's in control, that's what makes this farm a success." Jennifer M. Latzke can be reached by phone at 620-227-1807, or by e-mail at jlatzke@hpj.com. Advertisement
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