2025 Cotton Crop Posed Unique Management Challenges
Each season offers its own crop management lessons, and 2025 was certainly no different for cotton producers.
Mid-South Lessons
Many parts of the Mid-South and Southeast were extremely wet from March through June, offering few planting windows for growers. As a result, late-planted cotton required an altered management strategy for many.
“I would say [this was] one of the most unusual years that I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen several of them,” said Keylon Gholston, a Deltapine® New Product Evaluator grower near Baldwyn, Mississippi. “We planted the last few days of May and into the first of June. Young cotton does not like wet feet, and we received 12 inches of rainfall in June.”
His cotton crop began making good progress later in July and into August. Because the crop was going to be planted so late, Gholston increased his seeding rate from 38,000 to 42,000 seeds per acre to 48,000 to 50,000.
“In a shortened growing season like this one, I am trying to make fewer bolls on more plants because I do not have time to manage the crop like we normally do at 48,000 seeds per acre,” he said. “The second thing we did was put out a higher percentage of our nitrogen in the first application early and a lower percentage on the second application. This was done to try and push this crop for earliness.”
Planting a crop late and having a shortened season also makes plant growth regulator management more critical. Pushing the crop to reach maturity more quickly required a more aggressive PGR management, said Gholston. It was challenging, but he pushed the crop into a good fruit set by late August.
Protecting those bolls from insect damage was the next management practice that became most important, he said.
“We sprayed for plant bugs more than we normally do,” Gholston said. “We were spraying for plant bugs on a lower threshold because we felt we did not have a long enough season to make up for any fruit lost to insects. There are a lot of management practices you do differently when the crop is planted as late as we planted. Cotton is a resilient crop, and when managed right, it can pay off for you.”
Harvest Outlook
In June, his expectations for this crop were fairly low, and he did not expect it to be a record-setter. However, with the right kind of fall weather, a good cotton crop is possible. Varieties doing well as he races toward harvest include DP 2333 B3XF, which was somewhat easy to manage, even with all the rainfall experienced.
“The variety that really looks outstanding to me is DP 2537 B3TXF, released in the Class of ’25, Gholston said. “It won my NPE plot last year, and I went fairly heavy with it as a percentage of my crop this year. I am happy with that decision, and we will see how it turns out.
“I’ve told several people I’m just trying to make a late crop in August.”
Southeast Lessons
After the extremely wet and delayed planting season in Bertie County, North Carolina, Jacob Tayloe finally saw the cotton crop grow out of its sickly and injured appearance in late June. Some acres were planted in April, and the rest in late May.
With good heat and drier conditions in July, fields were off and racing.
“We felt like we were facing a shortened growing season, and we’ve had to try and push the crop to maturity stage quicker,” Tayloe said. “That forced us to make decisions on how aggressive to be with plant growth regulator applications. We were playing catch-up with the crop and needed to force it into fruiting stage.”
By late August, some of the cotton fields he and his father farm had taken on a heavy amount of PGR.
The 2025 crop has hinged on developing plant growth management strategies based on the type of growing conditions faced. In the upper Southeastern region, because of the spring weather, it has been a tale of two different crops, according to Bayer Technical Agronomist Zach Webb.
By August, the DD60s available to the cotton to get it to full maturity had lessened. Thus, it has been more critical to be aggressive with PGR applications and timely with insect control in the cotton that got off to such a late start.
“We do not want anything to slow the maturity down in those fields, and vegetative growth and insect damage can slow maturity,” said Webb. “The ThryvOn® Technology for cotton has helped growers when rainfall prevents them from making timely insecticide applications by offering a level of plant bug protection. We’ve had to push this late-planted crop and have had little room for error.”
Harvest Outlook
Much of this crop is set up to do very well if the weather cooperates now through harvest.
“With some sunshine, heat and dry conditions, many acres are set up with excellent potential to finish strong,” said Webb. “We have quite a bit of DP 2414 B3TXF and DP 2537 B3TXF planted in the region, and they have looked well this season and are showing great potential. Both of these varieties offer the ThryvOn Technology for cotton.”
Varieties such as DP 2115 B3XF and DP 2127 B3XF have set a high bar for performance in the upper Southeast. Webb predicts the two products with ThryvOn Technology for cotton can meet or exceed that bar.
“I think farmers learn a little something about managing the cotton crop every season,” said Tayloe. “We have good plant height and good fruit retention, and this crop is full of potential. We have gone from feeling like we weren’t going to make a good crop to feeling like we have a good possibility of making a strong crop.”
Southwest Lessons
West Texas cotton growers are well known for being innovative and resilient. They have to be in order to handle Mother Nature’s most unpredictable hand year after year.
For many in West Texas, growing conditions have been more favorable than in past seasons. Early rainfall provided a base of deep subsoil moisture for the crop to tap into as the season reached the hot, dry August month. Available moisture and below-average temperatures throughout June and July led to a nice stand of cotton in late August.
Application timing has been a key management practice this season for Southern High Plains grower Kris Givens, who farms near Crosbyton, Texas. Early-season rainfall meant planting at the right time, making fertility applications quickly and managing crop growth more important.
“Timing has meant everything for us this year,” said Givens. “We’ve had to stay on top of PGR applications more than we have in past seasons. This is one of those years where I think that is going to pay big dividends.”
Overall, Givens sees this year as being well above average as they approach harvest, thanks to more favorable growing conditions and well-timed management practices throughout the season.
“I don’t know that we can say ‘average’ too much in West Texas,” said Givens. “The past five or six years have been really erratic compared to what we normally have. I feel like we are always one rain away from a really good crop.”
Harvest Outlook
Deltapine Technical Agronomist Corey Thompson said many growers are seeing better yield potential in cotton fields across the region than last year. One of the biggest improvements he noted this season has been a significant increase in bolls per plant.
“Last year, we saw really good first-position retention, but fruiting slowed once we got into August with consecutive 100-degree temps and no rainfall,” Thompson said. “This year, we are setting a lot of those secondary bolls as well as bolls on the vegetative branches and holding on to them. That’s the difference.”
Both Thompson and Givens are pleased with the way DP 1820 B3XF and DP 1822 XF look in late August.
“DP 1820 B3XF and DP 1822 XF are both doing what they were bred to do,” Thompson said. “Both look outstanding this season with the better growing conditions and more moisture. During the past couple of droughty seasons we’ve had, these two varieties have shown that they have the potential to make cotton in limited-moisture conditions.”
Standing in Givens’ NPE plot, Thompson said he is optimistic about Deltapine Class of ’26 cotton variety candidates being evaluated in the program this season.
“Overall, things are looking really good,” Thompson said. “We have five candidates in this plot. They looked strong in late August. It’s going to come down to seeing the final yield and grades come back; however, that is a ways away.”
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