The U.S. Department of Agriculture ( USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) held its grand opening of the Lubbock Cotton Classification Complex on Sept. 14, 2022.
The 30,000-square-foot facility is located on the Texas Tech University (TTU) campus, where TTU students will have the opportunity to learn about grading and classing cotton samples, along with taking advantage of employment opportunities.
This is the first cotton classing facility to be located on the campus of a higher education institution.
“Texas Tech is a world leader in cotton research, and this facil-ity provides many opportunities for our faculty and students to advance the work that is of critical importance to this region,” said TTU President Lawrence Schovanec. “We are proud to partner with the United States Department of Agriculture on this historic cotton classing facility, which will positively impact the cotton industry in West Texas and beyond.”
According to Bruce Summers, administrator for USDA-AMS, the partnership will serve the U.S. cotton industry by grading roughly 20% of the cotton produced in this region.
The groundbreaking for the facility was in 2019 with construction starting at the height of the global COVID- 19 pandemic; however, the dream began more than five years before that.
“This grand opening culminates a long journey of planning, contracting and construction of the most modernized facility in the program’s fleet,” said Darryl Earnest, deputy administrator of the USDA-AMS Cotton and Tobacco Program. “It’s taken almost 9 years to get to this point and, while I didn’t foresee it taking almost a quarter of my career, I’m so proud of the end product.”
The new classing office in Lubbock is fully operable and will begin classing samples starting this season.
Visit the Plains Cotton Growers Instagram page to see the Grand Opening story highlight.
Unfortunately, some of these rain events contained hail which destroyed some good cotton. The rain has also brought on some regrowth in fields which did not have a sufficient boll load to prevent this. This juvenile regrowth will be difficult and more expensive to deal with when we use a harvest aid to set the plant up for harvest.
I anticipate that we will start applying harvest aids around the fourth week in September. We generally stick with a quart of ethephon for boll opening. On better cotton, I think the plant will respond normally to the defoliants. I would refer you to my last year’s “Cotton Harvest Aid Edition” of the West Plains IPM Update.
I remind producers to pay attention to what the manufacturers recommend as adjuvants with these products, particularly the PPOs ( Aim, ETX, Display, Sharpen, and Reviton). One thing on the PPOs – they are safe on grasses. So, we have used them often near wheat drilled in field margins with no concern. However, Reviton is a newer PPO and is an exception in that it will kill grasses.
As it cools down, be aware that some defoliants can be temperature sensitive. We generally plan on a two-shot harvest aid regime. We will use a paraquat product or, if we have regrowth issues, we will use one of the PPOs in that second follow-up application. I remind producers that paraquat is activated by sunlight. If it is applied early in the day, it will generally result in a rapid burn of the plant tissue and result in typical desiccation (sticking of leaves). In an application applied later in the day, the paraquat will move deeper in the plant tissue (local systemic movement). This can result in both desiccation and additional defoliation.
Have a safe harvest.