Our Spring rains have been a blessing and a hindrance (I’ll not call it a curse) making it difficult to get our crops planted, sprayed and fertilized on time.  Currently our cotton crop is under the most pressure.

Most of the cotton in the County has been planted but there are a few acres that have not.  Choices for these acres are limited as the insurance deadline is the end of May.  If you have a small fraction of your total acres that is not planted  you could plant through the first week of June. Research and history have shown planting through the first week of June can yield an average cotton crop given favorable weather, but you must be super timely all year long with inputs such as insecticide applications, fertility, PGR etc. If a large percentage of your cotton acres is not planted, the financial risk may be too great to plant after the insurance period has expired given the current market price and the higher input costs. The other option is to not plant the balance of the  cotton acres and take the prevented planting insurance option or to plant soybeans assuming you can pencil in a profit.  There are costs to each of these as you will still have to keep the weeds under control to get the full payment or plant soybeans which have their own input costs.  Call your insurance agent to discuss these payment options.  Keep in mind that you need to file the prevented planting claims within 72 hours of the late planting period which ends May 31.