For one producer, study is continuation of his own row-width experimentations

Late in May, a strange-looking, 16-row John Deere planter was being pulled through Gill Rogers’ cotton fields. The implement had 16 seed and chemical hoppers squeezed in tightly on the toolbar 15 inches apart and was planting one of nine test plots across the United States that are part of a cooperative project between Delta and Pine Land Company (D&PL), John Deere and Monsanto to study the benefits and challenges of growing cotton in 15-inch rows.

Plots have been planted at Mississippi State University; North Carolina State University; the Sunbelt Ag Expo in Moultrie, Ga; Plains and Lamesa, Texas; and Moscow, Satanta and Copeland, Kan. A plot planted in Sinton, TX was hailed out. The 220-acre plot on Gill Rogers’ Hartsville, SC farm is the featured location on a website, www.15inchcotton.com, which documents the study.

D&PL provided seed, John Deere the equipment and Monsanto is contributing Roundup^® herbicide for the project. In addition to giving its new Model 1730 Integral™ Planter some exposure, Deere will also demonstrate the new PRO-12™ VRS Cotton Picker Units during the harvest of the larger plots.

“The new system is a spindle-pick solution to the harvest challenges that have plagued growers of narrow-row cotton,” says Jarred Karnei, crop systems specialist for John Deere and supervisor of the 15-inch-row cotton plots.

John Deere introduced the picker to the North American cotton industry during the 2004 Beltwide Cotton Conferences in San Antonio, Texas.

“It will be exciting to see how the various producer-cooperators manage the 15-inch-row cotton,” says Karnei. “Depending on a producer’s equipment setup and other farming practices, things such as tire widths, weed control and insect control can pose challenges. The three companies get to see how their products work in narrow-row production, and everyone involved benefits by learning more about this potentially yield-increasing practice in cotton.”

For producer-cooperator Rogers, of Hartsville, S.C., the 220-acre plot will not be the first narrow-row cotton planted on his farm. In 1995, Rogers, who farms with his brother, John, changed from 38-inch to 30-inch row spacing. A few years later, they experimented with small acres of ultra-narrow-row cotton in 7-, 15- and 16-inch rows.