I looked up the model number of the harvester and it is indeed a picker. Goes to show why it was a good thing I stuck to wheat farming as the cotton stuff is a whole different world.

There are a couple large fields a few miles north of those that are really browned off. I expect those have been defoliated.

Does rain hurt cotton, once the bolls have opened? They had some really hard rains there a couple nights ago and flash flood warnings for the area. Still looked like they were making nice round bales. I think this is a new way of harvest for them, as the last couple years, they had large tarp covered "stacks" of cotton that they eventually hauled off.