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Colby, Kansas | Stu Duncan and Scott Staggenborg are our cotton guys. I work under Scott and manage KSU's cotton variety performance tests. We evaluated varieties at Winfield (rained), Cullison (dryland and irrigated) and Moscow (irrigated, dryland trial was abandoned). Were in the process of ginning right now and hope to have preliminary results out soon. All in all with the exception of dryland acres in southwest its going to be a pretty fair year for Kansas cotton.
There is a learning curve with cotton, I would say its more management intensive/critical than the other crops we grow in the state. Our margin for error is much narrower than other places as we are almost always in a race with the clock with regard to heat units.
Cotton can make a good rotation crop with good residue crops that we raise (corn sorghum wheat). I would be very cautious about getting too many low residue crops in rotation (cotton soybean sunflower canola etc).
Cotton does well in high stress conditions, especially heat if you can keep the water to it.
Just some random thoughts, I may follow up with some more. Or drop me an email if you want to visit, I can get you in touch with our people and some of our more experienced growers in the state.
Best Regards
Lucas
Edited by LHaag 11/29/2011 00:52
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Cotton in Kansas?
