With 400,000 acres of cotton concentrated over five counties, Missouri is one of the top five cotton producing states in the nation. Missouri’s southeastern Bootheel may not be synonymous with cotton production to outsiders, but the region’s rich history and even richer soils set it apart from the rest of the South.  

A healthy, accessible aquifer, flat fields and the Delta’s characteristically rich alluvial soils make Missouri’s Bootheel the perfect place for cotton, Sikeston farmer Jeff Hux said.  

“For us, it all starts with the dirt. All this land used to be under water before the diversion of the Mississippi River,” Hux said, pointing to the several hundred acres of flat, cotton producing ground ready to be harvested. “That’s what sets us apart in Missouri from the rest of the Delta. In the South, much of the land has been farmed almost since the Mayflower.” 

Fields of white cotton highlight the stark contrast as the rolling Ozark hills drop off into the flat land of the diversion area of the Mississippi River. Missouri’s five cotton producing counties might be closest to Arkansas and more agriculturally like the Delta than the rest of Missouri, but the cotton has distinct characteristics that mark it as Missouri grown. 

“Historically in the Bootheel, we have produced some of the highest quality upland cotton in the U.S.,” said Barry Bean of Bean & Bean Cotton Co., and a Peach Orchard, Mo., cotton farmer. “Going back to the to the 80s and 90s, we were producing long staple middlin’s up here and producing them reliably. And this was at a time when Texas was still primarily stripper cotton. They were producing a lot of a short staple, very high strength cotton.” 

Related:Cotton: An inescapable passion for Jeff Hux

Bean said Missouri became a reliable source for cotton in domestic mills and high-end foreign mills. “That was our stock and trade.” 

“We don't get as much of the tropical weather as they do, obviously, in the southeast, down in the Delta and down in Louisiana. We also don't have the drought stress that Texas has,” Bean said. “We do have a pretty good weed and insect stress, but we also know what to do about that.” 

Missouri farmers regularly overcome short growing seasons and persistent pest threats to thrive as one of the lesser-known American cotton producing powerhouses. 

Cotton ready to be picked near Sikeston, Mo. (Photo by Raney Rapp)