Low cotton prices will nudge Alabama cotton growers into some much-needed rotation

High corn, soybean and wheat prices will at least some Alabama acreage out of cotton this year, but that's not a bad thing altogether, say Extension workers. That may be especially true where land goes into corn or wheat.

"Rotation has got to help us with managing reniform nematodes," Charlie Burmester, Extension Agronomist in north Alabama, said this afternoon. "They really have an effect in a year like we've just had with an extended drought. There were cases where a grower averaged maybe 400 lbs/acre in fields that haven't been in rotation, while a neighbor just across the road picked 600 lbs/acre in fields that have been rotated with a non-host crop."

"We've been preaching rotation for years to deal with nematodes, weeds and other problems," added Dennis Delaney, the state's conservation tillage specialist. "Low cotton prices and stronger markets for grain are going to encourage a good bit of rotation this year. People pencil in the current cotton prices and see that they can't make money, while corn and soybean prices offer the chance to make a profit. It probably will be January or February before we a good idea about how much acreage will shift out of cotton. But unless something changes, that will probably be the trend."