Deltapine gathered its New Product Evaluator growers in Tampa, Fla., Dec. 9 to celebrate 15 years of the farmer-based program, and the company announced five new cotton varieties for the 2023 growing season.

NPE cotton growers test Deltapine pipeline variety ‘candidates’ on their own operations. They collect data and give their thoughts on those varieties.

“We’ve been doing this for 15 years, and still trying to find that perfect cotton variety. There’s nothing wrong with the older varieties, the Class of ’21 and Class of ’22 raised the bar, but there's always little tweaks we can make. Maybe it's disease resistance, maybe it's stand establishment or seed size. Maybe it's other native traits that bring some other tolerances,” said Eric Best, Deltapine cotton product manager. “The ultimate litmus test is getting these growers to tell us what they think is going to work in their operations and why. That in turn leads to the advancement for the next class of products.”

The 2023 cotton varieties released from NPE testing are:

The NPE program has around 200 growers throughout the cotton belt. As part of the program, the growers plant and manage Deltapine test varieties using their own practices, keeping the test varieties separate from other planted commercial varieties on their farms.

The growers plant enough seed for each variety, according to NPE protocol, to harvest at least one module of cotton. Growers rate each test variety on yield, fiber quality, management and growth habits and return results to the Deltapine cotton team.

Seed for the new 2023 varieties will be limited. Best recommended growers contact their local sales reps for availability.