Sweet Home Alabama

Farm Journal, Dec 28, 2005 by John Leidner

Field after field of cotton used to line Interstate 85 between Montgomery, Ala., and Atlanta, Ga. Today, industrial plants and manufacturing facilities fill the fields that once squared up and set bolls. Tall pines and an occasional pecan grove surround what's left of east-central Alabama's cotton--20,000 acres, most of it in Lee, Macon and Elmore counties.

But if you take Alabama's back roads, you'll still see thriving cotton fields; you're right, there's not as many fields as there once was, but cotton still has a presence--in fact, it's making a comeback in Alabama and in much of the Southeast, thanks in part to boll weevil eradication programs. In the town of Enterprise, a boll weevil monument is a visual reminder of the nuisance that forced cotton farmers to diversify their operations.

Just up the road from Mike Gunn's Tallassee, Ala., cotton farm, sits the old Mount Vernon textile mill along the east bank of the Tallapoosa River. In the summer of 2005, owners of the mill announced it would close. In recent years, it made fabrics used in home furnishings and upholstery. This mill, which is believed to be the oldest in the U.S., manufactured cloth for the Confederate Army uniforms that gave Alabama the "Yellowhammer State" nickname. Jeff Clary, a retired Extension agent in Lee County, downplays the impact of local textile mills closing on cotton farmers. "The textile mills went to Mexico, then to China, but that hasn't affected our local production because we're in a world market not a local market," he says.

Like the textile mills, many cotton farmers have called it quits. Gunn's farm is the only commercial cotton operation on his road. Many of the small fields lie idle, empty aside from one or two year's growth of weeds. These fields were owned or leased by farmers who are no longer in the business.

Much of the cropland near him now sprouts pine trees and housing developments. "I bought land to farm from a man who now grows pine trees on his remaining land," Gunn adds. "We also see hunters buying recreational land and taking it out of farming.

According to Clary, who is now a part-time regional agronomist for Auburn and a real estate salesman, land in Lee County sells for $5,000 to $6,000 per acre. Even hunting land in this area goes for $3,000 per acre. It's no wonder that Gunn says, "If I didn't own this land, I wouldn't be farming."

Through thick and thin, Gunn is committed to farming--and growing cotton. In August 2005, his farm shop was the first stop on the East Alabama Cotton Tour. The event began in 1978 when Auburn University entomologist Ron Smith conducted a cotton insect control test using then-new pyrethroid insecticides. It draws 100 or more people and is one of the highlights of the year for cotton growers.

Gunn's game plan. Like many of his fellow farmers, the prominent signs near the highway next to Gunn's growing cotton fields proclaim DP 555 BG/RR as the variety planted. Delta and Pine Land's "triple nickel" as it's often called, is known for high yields.

Like many other farmers in the region, he no-tills all of his crops. "I haven't plowed my land in 14 to 16 years," he says.

A field near his empty grain bins is hardest hit by nematodes. To control the pests, he sidedresses 5 lb. of Temik per acre. He also uses an in-furrow treatment of PGR-IV, a product that boosts seedling growth and yield.Roundup is the basis of Gunn's weed control program- -and "is the only herbicide I use," he says.

Boll weevils were eradicated from east-central Alabama during the 1990's. By using Bt varieties, Gunn spends little spraying for insecticides. He applies Vydate at the pinhead square stage of growth to control plant bugs. If needed, he applies Bidrin and pyrethroids later in the season to control escaped worms and bugs.

When planting cotton, Gunn applies 19-19-0 starter fertilizer and sidedresses 90 lb. of nitrogen per acre. Then he comes back with two or three applications of a foliar fertilizer called Trisert.

Gunn also uses Pix, a plant growth regulator. Numerous applications were required last year, in part because fields received 50" of rainfall through August. This led to rank growth in tall- growing varieties.

Gunn has grown cotton since he was six years old. "I remember driving my first tractor in 1960," he says. "We switched to soybeans in the early 1970s. Getting out of cotton during those years was the biggest mistake I've made in farming."

Low prices coupled with poor yields and dry weather have hurt soybeans in this region. As a result, production has dropped dramatically.

Gunn started growing cotton again in 1978--and he hasn't looked back. He grew his last corn crop in 1996. "Most of the time, corn can't compete here with two-bale cotton," he says. "I would like to grow corn in a rotation because it would help control nematodes," Gunn explains.

If you consider that he plants cotton after cotton on the same land, Gunn's two-bale yields are impressive, especially when compared with the state's 10-year average yield of only 605 lb. per acre. "I have to grow a crop that will let me make my land payments," Gunn explains. "Cotton has been that crop for us."