Foliar nutrition aids in a cotton plant’s increased energy requirement during boll load in the month of August, helping plants to meet both the energy and nutrient requirements needed to turn squares into bolls.
In Scriven County Georgia, a large-scale dryland cotton trial, planted May 17, has been the site of incredible insight into just what proper nutrition can do for a dryland cotton plant.
“Even in a dryland field, we can maintain good, consistent nutrition that pays off,” says Concept AgriTek Agronomist, Bert Riggan.
From a treated vs. untreated cotton field test site, Riggan shares the grower standard on the DeltaPine cotton variety, noting that he pulled leaves to see the positions and counted everything that had the potential to put on a boll. The photo below shows the plant that was sitting at 51 positions on August 5.
Untreated cotton plant from a large-scale cotton test plot in Screven County GA on 8-5-22
“The star of the show is the field where foliar nutrition was applied along with a new Concept AgriTek cotton product that is being tested this summer. When I counted the positions on the plant from the treated field, I found 98 positions that have the opportunity to turn into a boll by September 1,” Riggan says. “That new product has done wonders for increasing the branching and back fruiting along the laterals.”
Plant from a field where foliar nutrition and a new product coming to the Concept AgriTek portfolio was applied.
Riggan says that with the size of the branching the team is seeing, it’s easy to speculate that the plant population was too high, population has nothing to do with it – the density comes from the massive branching.
“One of the branches of this plant that received foliar nutrition and the new product will hold more bolls than the entire plant of some of the other fields I’ve walked today,” he says.
Another clear difference Riggan says is the physical temperature difference in the treated versus untreated field.
“On the treated field, we used CalBor and you can actually feel the temperature difference in the treated versus untreated,” Riggans adds.
The plant health difference is easy to spot with the naked eye!