Weekly in-season Updates
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INFORMATION |
August 21, 2006 Talkin’ Cotton
We have had several questions this week on the effect of recent rains on cotton that has been drought stressed. If the plant has developing bolls at the time of rainfall, the added moisture will increase both yield and fiber quality of these bolls. Initiation and development of new bolls will depend on severity of the drought prior to the rainfall, and if we have a warmer or cooler than normal fall season. In a normal season, plant fruiting is orderly and continuous. Under normal drought stress, plants will continue to produce squares, but fruit will shed shortly following blooming. Under very severe drought stress the plants will cut out and terminal growth will stop, resulting in no new squares being formed in the top of the plant. Any new bloom will be required to go through the entire squaring process, which will require 2 ½ to 3 weeks. This means the first new blooms since the rainfall will occur near the middle of September. It would require exceptionally warm fall weather running until the middle of November for the first of these blooms to produce bolls. If the drought stress has not been as severe, squares will be present in the top of the plant. These squares will normally shed within a few days following blooming if the plant continues to be drought stressed. If rainfall is received, normally those squares at or nearing bloom will go ahead and shed, but half to two thirds grown squares will continue to develop. These will initiate blooming 10 to 15 days earlier than the plants that have been severely drought stressed and do not have squares in the terminal of the plant. Even with these less stressed plants, blooming will initiate at the end of August or first of September. This is normally near the end of our effective fruiting period, but with favorable fall weather some of these blooms will develop into harvestable bolls.
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