Weekly in-season Updates
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INFORMATION |
October 3, 2005 Talkin’ Cotton
Harvest aid application is in full swing, and harvest has started in some areas. Most harvest aid treatments were showing rapid and thorough results prior to the cool front that moved through the area early last week. Treatments should still work well, but they will be slower acting. Best results have been obtained with 1.5 to 2 pints of Finish plus .5 to 1 pint of Def. Cotton to be harvested by picker has had good results with Finish alone at a rate of 2 pints per acre. In some recent demonstrations on dryland, Finish or Prep plus Ginstar or CottonQuick plus Ginstar have looked good. Finish or Prep rate should be 1-1.5 pints and Ginstar rate should be 3-6 ounces. It will require the 6 ounce rate of Ginstar to provide adequate juvenile or regrowth inhibition. Late planted fields with a lot of small green bolls on them will probably need to wait until good application weather prior to a freeze for application of a boll opener. This will cause abscission layers to be set which will allow bolls to open and leaves to fall off following a freeze. The primary challenge in timing of this application is trying to guess when the first freeze will occur. The average first freeze for Southwest Oklahoma is November 7, and for the northwest area of Oklahoma it is approximately October 15. Any time we have two to three days of sunshine approximately 1 week to 10 days prior to the average first freeze is the time to make an application of the boll opener. Money that would normally be spent on a defoliant to add to the boll opener should be spent on increasing the rate of boll opener and not include the defoliant. If abscission layers are set, the leaves will fall off instead of being stuck on the plant.
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