San Joaquin Valley cotton producers will no longer be required to tag non-approved cotton modules and bales.

Under new rules proposed by the San Joaquin Valley Cotton Board, an upland grower will only have to declare to his gin what variety he is delivering, according to Susan McCarthy, California Department of Food and Agriculture senior agricultural biologist assigned to the quality cotton program.

To insure the quality and reputation of the SJV Acala and SJV Pima varieties approved by the San Joaquin Valley Cotton Board, growers must report field identification information, number of acres and names of all cotton varieties to be ginned, McCarthy says.

Less than 500,000 acres of cotton are expected to be planted in the valley this year — 300,000 Pima and about 200,000 Upland.

Only about half the upland acreage is expected to be approved Acala varieties; the rest will be either non-approved Acalas or uplands for seed production.

Nine years ago there were 1.3 million acres. Cotton has continued to be replaced by either permanent crops or forage crops for dairies.

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