A Ph.D. student with the University of Arizona believes that organic cotton could be a good summertime place-holder crop for organic vegetable farmers in the Arizona desert.

Macey Keith is looking at how organic vegetable farmers can use Upland cotton to help cover land costs in the hot summer months when vegetable production has transitioned to the California central coast.

According to Keith, the acreage of organic vegetables in Yuma County lends itself to the possibility of organic cotton. The challenge: getting the local cotton gin certified to handle that cotton, which she says is an option as gin management at the Yuma cotton gin is “open to the idea.”

Arizona is not a major player in organic cotton, though it is somewhat significant for organic vegetables. Keith says Arizona produces about 10,000 acres of certified organic vegetables annually. This compares to under 1,000 acres of certified organic cotton, according to the Arizona Cotton Growers Association. None of that cotton is grown in the Yuma region.

Arizona’s organic cotton is grown in Pinal County in central Arizona. It is currently ginned several hundred miles away in southern New Mexico. Jadee Rohner, executive director of the Arizona Cotton Growers Association, has been told that at least 4,000 acres of organic cotton would need to be grown in Arizona to cover ginning costs.

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Challenges remain

While the opportunities sound good, challenges remain, Keith says. Vegetables in general provide the best returns for Yuma farmers. Finding organic alternatives to summer crops in the region is a challenge Keith is working to overcome.

Vegetable season in the desert operates by calendar. Farmers start their ground prep and planting by Labor Day, with winter vegetable season extending into March. Durum wheat is typically planted on some of that ground by the end of the year, with cotton planted shortly thereafter. Upland cotton is favored in Yuma because it is a shorter season crop, and the heat tends to be too much for the longer season Pima varieties.

Defoliation remains a big hurdle. In studies at the University of Arizona’s Maricopa research farm, she found a biological defoliant that worked well but is not certified for organic cotton, even though it has an OMRI (Organic Materials Review Institute) label for other organic crops. Summertime water availability for desert cotton is yet another hurdle.

Keith believes if those challenges can be addressed, Yuma area farmers could do well with organic cotton as the proliferation of beneficial predator insects in the region could greatly assist growers forced to use less-effective organically certified insecticides against lygus and other cotton pests.

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She cited insect population studies by longtime UA entomologist and cotton insect specialist Peter Ellsworth, her Ph.D. studies advisor. In those studies, Ellsworth revealed what Keith called “insane” beneficial insect numbers from nearby alfalfa fields. These were likely a contributing factor in controlling lygus egg and nymph populations in area cotton fields.