Cotton growers in the Delta don’t pick one variety to plant and don’t choose a variety for next year while looking out the windshield of the picker.

“We know that yield and fiber quality influences our varietal selections for next season. Showy varieties tend to get our attention at harvest,” Bayer Regional Agronomist Steve Lee says.

However, Lee says, growers consider season-long performance when choosing next year’s varieties.

In addition to looking at yield and agronomic characteristics, Bayer Regional Agronomist Andy White urges growers to consider each of their fields when choosing varieties.

“We have many different varieties, different maturities, different growth habits, better fiber packages, better disease packages,” White says. “We can prescribe varieties for each field. One variety is not going to cover everything. Never in a season would I recommend a grower plant his entire farm to one variety. It’s just not a good seedsman that would do that sort of thing.”

White encourages growers to consider soil type, variety management needs and their management style when choosing cotton varieties. Field location and history also are essential components, particularly when considering weed management needs.

“Because of the proactive approach our growers have taken, they have been able to control resistant weeds in their fields. Driving by some of these fields you wouldn’t ever know or even think that they had a weed problem and that’s because they’ve been on top of it using the LibertyLink system on their farm to control pigweeds,” White says. “They go out and start early. They use a residual. They target small weeds. They use high water volumes. They slow down a little bit. We’ve had tremendous success with our growers using the LibertyLink system in controlling these resistant weeds.”

Growers in the Delta who are choosing varieties for 2018, should take a look at: