BY JULIE SPEED DBJ Contributing Writer

Boosted by the profit potential and security of the crop insurance program, cotton crop plantings were up this spring.
“Our farmers are 85% planted in cotton, with about 70% emerged. Rice? Probably 90% planted, with 85% up. In soybeans, we’ve got about 90% planted, 80% emerged. In corn and sorghum, it’s 100% planted, 100% emerged, wheat is fully matured, and we’ll start cutting in about two weeks,” says Guy Wilson, county agent for Washington County, in mid-May. “We’re off to a good start.”

Cotton
The USDA Agricultural Statistics Service estimates that more than 1.5 million acres of cotton were planted in Mississippi this spring–mostly in the Delta–to mark one of the biggest plantings in years.
“It’s one of the biggest crops we’ve seen planted in a while, which I think is mostly due to the insurance program,” says Don Respess, county agent for Bolivar County.
Even though cotton farmers feared the worst from the cold snap that occurred after some cotton plants emerged, the damage was minimal, says William H. McCarty, Ph.D., a specialist in plant and soil sciences at Mississippi State University.
“Farmers had to replant a little, but not much,” McCarty says. “Overall, cotton on the sandy loam and silt loam soils is doing very well at this point in time. We’ve got good stands. Cotton is very healthy and growing. On clay soils, cotton needs some moisture to get uniform emergence.”
Charles Coghlan of Coghlan Farms in Benoit planted 3,100 acres of cotton and has irrigated some acreage to get the cotton to germinate.
“We’ve got areas where plants on one end of the field have two or three leaves, and on the lower end, the seed hasn’t even germinated,” Coghlan says. “Fortunately, that’s a small part of my acreage, and overall, the cotton is off to a really good start.”
Agricultural suppliers are also off to a good start. Steve Hawkins, president and COO of Delta and Pine Land Co. in Scott, says “when cotton acreage is up and farmers have good product performance with our new varieties, they reward us by buying our products.” The leading cotton varieties in volume are Paymaster 1218B/R and Deltapine 451B/R, Hawkins says.
“Soybean sales aren’t up to last year’s, but we sell a lot of soybeans to cotton farmers, so when cotton acreage goes up, soybean acreage goes down,” he says.
Tim Tenhet, sales manager for The KBH Corp. in Clarksdale, a manufacturer of agricultural equipment, says despite the poor agricultural economy in general, 2001 is shaping up to be “our best sales year since 1995, which was a banner year for cotton.”
“A lot of tractor dealers I’ve talked to says they’ve had a good year so far,” Tenhet says. “I don’t know if that’s consistent to other locations, but it is in the Delta, which is a strong market for us.”
Tenhet says fertilizer equipment is generally sold during the first half of the year, with cotton harvest equipment sold the second half.
“Early projections are excellent, which I think is partly attributed to the insurance program,” he says. “We’re all optimistic. We also want it to rain, and get everything off to a good start. The process of decent yields will drive some of our end of season sales.”
Coghlan says the insurance program is detrimental to cotton growers “because every acre that’s added is affecting the market. It’s depressing prices. The only way we’re going to get the price up on cotton is to cut acreage and we’re going 180 degrees from that.”

Rice
Even though last year’s rice acreage was down about 30% from 1999, when some growers shifted to cotton and/or soybeans, rice plantings were up 15% to 20% this spring. Lemont was grown on 60% of the acreage, followed by Priscilla (27%), Cypress (5%), and Cocodrie (4%). There were limited plantings of Wells, Jefferson, and XL6 varieties, according to the MSU Extension Service.
“We’ve had a pretty good start on our rice,” says Nolen Canon, Jr., of Tunica, president/chairman of the board of the U.S. Rice Producers Association. “What I’ve seen looks pretty healthy, though people would like to see some rain.”
Canon, who was recently named Farmer of the Year by the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation, primarily grows rice and soybeans.
“The price is still very depressed because the overabundance of worldwide supplies is putting an extreme amount of pressure on the market, even though I’m told that a lot of the rice mills are going to be hard-pressed to find enough rice to keep their operations running throughout the summer,” Canon says. “They tell me there’s a shortage of long grain rice, but there’s so much rice in the world right now, there’s a lid on any upward movement.”
Canon says there’s been no problem with wells getting water.
“We can control the water in rice and that helps,” says Respess. “Some people had trouble getting stands going, but with some field flushing, we controlled that.”

Soybeans
Even though plantings have fluctuated in Mississippi from two million acres (last year) to four million acres (in 1979), replanting soybeans this spring has been minimal, and the name of the game is “chasing moisture.”
“Moisture is already becoming an issue,” says McCarty. “The earlier planted soybeans are off to a good start, but soybeans on clay soil need a good rain. We’ve heard of a little cutworm damage early, a few thrips, a few aphids, but nothing out of the ordinary.”
In the last two decades, the bulk of soybean plantings has shifted from Groups IV and V to Groups VI and VII, according to the MSU Extension Service.
“Most all of the plantings in Washington County are in Groups IV and V,” Respess says. “I don’t know of any VIs at all. We’ll definitely be staying with the IVs and Vs, and planting earlier.”
By far, the majority of insect problems showing up are in no-till plantings, particularly bean leaf beetles and grasshoppers. “Nothing serious,” Respess says.
Weed control has been exceptional so far, thanks to slow weed growth and emergence.

Corn
A lack of rainfall during late April and early May depleted soil moisture levels in the 400,000 acres planted in Mississippi this spring, down slightly from 2000 plantings.
“We’re putting water on it now,” Respess says. “It’s dry, but I think we should have a real good crop of corn this year.”
Some farmers have complained about sulfony urea in corn hybrids, but the overall corn crop looks promising, Wilson says.

Wheat
Even though the Delta’s wheat crop has enjoyed favorable growing conditions this spring, yield expectations are lower than the previous two years’ record yield of 50 bushels per acre. Persistent cold, wet conditions, a carryover from the severe winter, caused damage to wheat crops.
“We had some problems in early May with armyworms, but that’s been taken care of,” Respess says.
So far, wheat crops in Washington County, which led the state last year, look good, says Wilson.
“The only thing we’ve been concerned with this spring have been the showers that have come in possibly with rust, but there haven’t been many reports of that so I think we’ll be OK,” he says. DBJ