Southwest growers start choosing cotton varieties from the stripper cab. The final decision, however, is tough. Narrowing down which varieties brought the most profit and which new ones deserve trial acres takes a certain artistry, a talent honed by experience.

Three stops along the way to the final decision can make a big difference in next year’s profit opportunity. To make the final decision, growers:

What does the gin report show?

The difference between what you saw from the cab and what came out in bales can be significant. Did the variety have a high gin turnout? Did the variety have fiber quality good enough to add cents per pound to your bottom line? Money earned from premium payments is like bonus cotton; you didn’t spend anything extra to get it.

“Growers choose FiberMax cotton seed varieties not only for their very high yield potential but also for their exceptional fiber quality,” Bayer Agronomist Craig Bednarz says. “The combination allows a grower to maximize profit potential not only on the yield per acre basis but also the price per pound.”

What does each field need?

If you’re a Southwest grower working dryland acres, you need a variety with drought tolerance and water efficiency. If you have fields under pressure from Verticillium wilt or bacterial blight, you need a variety that offers tolerance or resistance to those diseases. If you’re stripping cotton, you need plants bred to excel in that system.

Bayer Agronomist Rick Minzenmayer understands the challenges dryland growers face each season.

“A lot of the production in the Rolling Plains is dryland production and one of our new varieties, FiberMax 2007GLT, looks outstanding this year,” Minzenmayer says. “It’s tight in the bur. It’s got a lot of good seedling vigor coming out of the ground. It’s really easy to manage. It has an outstanding fiber package.”

To minimize disease impacts, growers can look to varieties that offer tolerance or resistance. At FiberMax.com, growers can use the Variety Selector ToolTM to compare options and print variety material. For example, FiberMax® 1911GLT, a new variety that includes FM 2011GT in its background, delivers a broad disease and nematode package:

Which traits does each field need?

Pressure from glyphosate-resistant weeds demands the flexible herbicide options offered by varieties with both GlyTol® and LibertyLink® traits, which offer full in-season tolerance to both Liberty® herbicide and glyphosate.

“Growers in 2016 realized that they probably had resistant pigweeds out there from the beginning. They didn’t try to go in and make an application of glyphosate first and then come back and spray the weeds that weren’t killed afterwards,” Bayer Western Agronomy Manager Kenny Melton says. “They came in with Liberty on their first shot and that was critical.”

Growers focused on weed-control traits could consider FM 2322GL, which offers flexible in-season weed management with Liberty and glyphosate in a variety with excellent fiber quality and high yield potential. FM 2322GL also performs well under limited irrigation and dryland situations.

Need to add worm resistance to your trait package? For maximum pest-management efficiency, turn to GlyTol LibertyLink TwinLink®. The GLT varieties add the broad-spectrum lepidopteran insect protection of TwinLink to the herbicide traits.

Visit FiberMax.com to learn more about maximizing profit in each of your fields.