Cotton Harvest At the Old Rotation

While most people think football season is the kick-off of fall, the team at the Old Rotation begins fall with the crop harvest.

The Old Rotation was established in 1896 and is the world’s oldest continuous cotton experiment. This season, corn, cotton and soybeanshave been harvested.

Each crop grown has its own “harvest ready” characteristic.

“For cotton we look at the number of bolls open,” said Audrey Gamble, soil scientist at the Alabama Cooperative Extension System and Auburn University.

After looking at the bolls, Steve M. Brown, cotton agronomist at Auburn University, said they defoliate the leaves, a process he describes as “spraying the crops to speed up what is naturally going to happen.”

To harvest cotton, it is important to defoliate to remove the leaves and speed up the boll openings so they can pick it all at once.

They sprayed the crop last week. Once the leaves are off and the bolls are open, the Old Rotation team brings in equipment from the E.V. Smith Research Center to start harvesting.

“Farmers pick from mid-September until Thanksgiving or Christmas, depending on the weather and acres the farmer harvests,” Brown said.

To harvest cotton, it takes special equipment. He the fastest picker picks about 75 acres a day.

“At cotton harvest we will use our refurbished one row cotton picker,” Gamble said. It will only take a few hours to do this because it is a small plot. However, operating a cotton picker can take time.

“There is not a more expensive or more complicated machine,” said Brown.

The picker goes through the crop, sticks the cotton, pulls the lint from the plants, and puts it into a basket. After the harvest is done, the cotton will eventually be taken to a cotton gin.

“Because It is a smaller amount, we will have E.V. Smith Research Center take it to be included with some of their cotton,” Gamble said.

The crop will be taken to Milstead Gin in Tallassee, AL.

“It’s easy to say the cotton is ready, but the effort and time involved in harvest makes it a challenge to get done,” Brown said.

When it isn’t harvest season at the Old Rotation, there is still work being done. Caretakers have switched to less tillage, so they plant a cover crop. This year at the Old Rotation, the winter cover crop will be Clemson Clover.

“You’ll see that coming up in November and December,” Gamble said.

By spring, the clover will begin to bloom.

The Old Rotation has deep roots at Auburn University. In 1896 J.F. Duggar, the director of the Auburn University Agricultural Experiment Station and the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service, used the land to demonstrate cotton and corn production by planting a winter cover crop and rotating the summer crops.

Ideas from Duggar’s experiment are still practiced today. The land is still used for research, demonstration, and learning.

“We have students who have never seen cotton growing until they go to the Old Rotation,” said Gamble.

Brown and Gamble both enjoy enhancing learning opportunities for students by giving them hands-on experience in the field.

As Duggar said, “Alabama agriculture fields will come into her own when her fields are green in the wintertime.”