This past week I attended the National Association of County Agricultural Agents meeting in Dallas, Texas. It’s a joy to see my ag educator/agent friends serving people through the U.S.
and its territories, to talk through local issues, learn from and encourage each other. Extension is truly like a big family, both within Nebraska, and outside of it, and I’m grateful for that and for peer groups in my life over time. Even though I took care of clientele during my time away, it’s also nice to physically get away at times to reset.
A highlight of these meetings is a tour of local agriculture for that state. My tour was on cotton production including touring a cotton gin. Others of you probably know this, but I didn’t realize the cotton flowers were so beautiful! They begin white when they bloom.
Once they pollinate, they turn pink, then turn into the boll which eventually form burs around it. Cotton is either stripped with a stripper header like some harvest wheat (which essentially leaves the stalk standing), or it is harvested by picking where only the bolls are removed. Most of the farmers in this area of Texas use stripper headers.
Some fun facts: a cotton boll has 4 compartments, each with 7 seeds in it. Each bale of cotton removed from a field goes through the gin individually. It comes in at about 10-12% moisture and is dried to 6-7% to allow for easier cleaning.
The cottonseed, burrs, sticks, etc. are removed from it and the cleaned cotton is baled and bagged wi.
