versity of California Extension Cotton Specialist Bob Hutmacher, who is doing research comparing the three narrow-row production systems along with Madera/Merced counties farm advisor Ron Vargas said, “it's amazing Daniel got a stand considering the nasty conditions he encountered.”
After the cotton emerged, it never saw iron again until it was picked. His management, other than insects, was to water-run UN 32; about 125 units.
”It did not look too bad considering what we went through just to get a stand.” The established plants filled in skips well.
When it came time to pick, the 12-row Deere behemoth began rolling through the three fields.
“The picker had a row guidance system, but it was not equipped with GPS and it was a bear to pick the cotton. I had my best driver on it and he had a heckuva time finding the rows. And he could not drive after dark because he could not see the rows. The picker was the biggest downfall of the whole thing,” he said. There also were problems with weeds plugging the 12-heads.
The picker has operated in the South and Southeast, recording significant yield increases in 15-inch cotton. “I think the difference in the West is that we have bigger plants and that made it more difficult for the picker to operate,” he said. Burns surmised that UNR cotton in the South reaches only about two feet in height while Western UNR could be twice that tall.
He tried to mount the AutoFarm GPS guidance system he uses on tractors on the Deere picker, but it was not compatible with the harvester.
Burns said it was not a good growing season to evaluate the narrow-row cotton, but he still believes the potential is there. “We have not ginned all the modules, but it looks like one field of 15-inch cotton went one bale; another a bale and a half and another probably two and a half bales, which is not bad considering what we went through just to get a stand,” he said.
“There is no question the potential is there for 15-inch cotton if it can be picked with GPS,” he said. “There was a yield monitor on the picker and it went through some four-bale cotton, proving that ultra narrow row cotton can yield.”
Getting a yield increase is still critical to adapting new production techniques, but parallel to that is the need to reduce costs.
”I have done some preliminary calculations and it looks like UNR was about $80 per acre cheaper to grow than conventional cotton. Twin-row 30 cotton is about $50 cheaper to grow than conventional single row cotton.”
Problems with the picker have tempered Burn's enthusiasm a bit on the 15-inch system. “I don't think Deere is going to come back again to our farm with the system. You need a perfect season to make this work, and this was not the perfect season.”
However, the disappointing '05 experiment has not lessened his drive to cut costs to stay in the cotton business.
“We do not know what is going to happen with the new farm bill, but it seems certain support will be reduced. For us to stay in the cotton business, we have got to cut costs,” he said.
The Deere 15-inch system is expensive. The planter costs $50,000 and the 12-row picker is well into six figures.
There may not be a Western market for hardware that expensive.
The picker has been tested at J.G. Boswell on Pima cotton. However, most Pima is second picked and the cut-and-twist harvesting system will not second pick, thereby excluding the Deere system from more than half the cotton acreage in the valley. Of an estimated 600,000 acres of cotton expected to be planted in the valley in '06, at least half will be Pima.
That means there will be only about 250,000 acres of Acala/upland cotton in the valley next season and there are few growers who could afford to buy the planter and 12-row picker to gather 15-inch cotton. However, Deere said the picker mechanisms for the new harvesting system can be retrofitted to existing late model picker and that may be incentive enough to buy or lease the planter and give 15-inch cotton a try by replacing heads of older machines with the UNR picking mechanism.
“I think 10 years ago something like t