OUTSTANDING DRYLAND YIELDS in dryland cotton are reported by Jeannie Hileman, gin manager of the Farmers Cooperative Gin at Carnegie, Oklahoma:

"As of Sunday, Dec. 2, 2007, we have ginned 6,269 bales," she said. "We expect to gin around 10,000 bales this season.  We are seeing good yields from the irrigated cotton in our client area, but it had some problems earlier in the year. Excessive rains, flooding and seedling blight hurt our irrigated acres. However, irrigated cotton is averaging two and a half bales per acre here.

"Our dryland cotton, for many reasons, has outstanding yields. Our farmers have several fields yielding two bales to the acre. Most of the dryland acres have yields in excess of a bale to the acre; many with a bale and a half yield. I think we will see an average of better than one and three-quarters of a bale cotton for our farmers this year.

"And not only are the yields excellent, but the quality of the cotton is good, too. I have seen some top staple length cotton ginned this season. Our excellent yields can be attributed to an open fall in the latter part of the growing season. We had clear, warm days and cool nights that gave the cotton every opportunity to grow to its full potential. Earlier in the year, although we had a lot of bad storms and flooding, our area escaped most of the worst of that weather. The rain did give us plenty of subsoil moisture that helped the cotton plants put down a good root system so they could draw up all the nutrients needed to grow well.

"Also, a major contributor to our excellent yields this year are several new cotton varieties that are Roundup Ready Flex varieties. We have seen really good results from DP&L 2140 and 143 and Fibermax 9063. In the Fort Cobb area, there were some NexGen varieties that did really well."

Hileman's gin is running 18 hours a day now, using the downtime to clean up and to check our the gin, she says. Some welcome clients from the Elk City farming area have brought their cotton to the Carnegie site this year.

This field of 2007 cotton, taken in southwestern Oklahoma, is typical of the excellent yields and quality cotton farmers are harvesting. photo courtesy of NTOK Cotton

"One of our new customers is Danny Davis," she said.  "As most people know, he has been very active with the National Cotton Council for several decades. He is know for his long-term practice of notill. The farmers in this area have enjoyed talking with him and getting his insight on notill cotton production."

The Carnegie cooperative gin has been practically rebuilt in the past three years, Hileman says:

"In three years, we went from ginning 1,000 bales a season to 10,000. We have completely updated the electrical system in the press and made it all automated. We installed a module feeder, new lint cleaners, a new drying system and renovated the gin stands." she said. "This has allowed us to do a better drying job on the cotton as it comes into the gin and streamlined the way we handle cotton as it enters the gin as loose cotton and leaves in bales."

TALKIN' COTTON is a feature of NTOK Cotton, a cotton industry partnership which encourages increased cotton production in the Rolling Plains of North Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

For more information on the cotton scene, check out www.okiecotton.org and www.ntokcotton.org.

For comments or questions about Talkin' Cotton, contact us at eventerprises@hughes.net.