December 5, 2001
Virginia cotton growers are playing the numbers in their search for high yielding, high-quality varieties, and are planting varieties that combine fiber quality and yield, says Johnny Parker of the Commonwealth Gin in Windsor, Va.
The move away from high-mike, low-staple length cotton is already showing up in the fields and will likely show itself in larger numbers next season, Parker believes.
For example, in 2000 many Virginia growers planted significant acre of Paymaster 1218, Parker says. While the yield of this variety was good, deductions from short staple caused producers to limit the acreage of 1218 dramatically for 2001.
On the positive side, Virginia growers are seeing results from the FiberMax varieties in regard to quality and yield, Parker says.
The difference is, producers can look at the grade components of thousands of bales of cotton ginned at Commonwealth and see how varieties are performing, Parker says.
Most of the cotton has had good staple in Virginia for 2001. About a fourth of the state had some high mike cotton, but as a whole the micronaire levels have fallen just below discount levels. It is still in the upper 40s on more than half of the crop.
From his desk at Commonwealth Gin, Parker talks about the importance of micronaire and staple to the bottom line of the farmers who gin here.
Parker calls the micronaire component “fiber diameter. The thicker the fiber is, the larger the mike number.
“From our experiences over the past several years, we've learned that mike can be managed,” Parker says.
About 50 percent of the mike issue is influenced by variety and the other 50 percent sees to be based on growing season and environment.
“We have some acreage pretty far north, and some years we've had to defoliate cotton at 20 percent open boll,” Parker says. “When we do this, we still get a good yield, but the micronaire is quite a bit lower. Sometimes this is helpful.
“If it looks like the season is going to have high micronaire, then one strategy is to defoliate when the cotton is only 50 percent to 60 percent open instead of waiting until it gets 75 percent open,” Parker says. “Usually, the high mike crops are the early-maturing crops anyway. Micronaire is an indication of maturity and we figure that high mike cotton gets over-mature.