JACKSON, Tenn. – Bradley Booth intended to plant 2,500 acres of cotton this year. He got 2,100 acres planted and then, because of the May rains, he had to replant 700 acres to soybeans. His situation was not unique.

Statewide, Tennessee cotton production is estimated to drop by approximately one-third in 2024 because of heavy rainfall throughout May, which is the ideal planting window for this essential row crop.

“We are in a unique situation in Tennessee in that we got an early window in April to plant but then when we typically plant in May we had seven large rainfall events that slammed shut the planting window every time it opened,” said Tyson Raper, cotton and small grains Extension specialist with the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture.

Replant numbers were the highest they have been since Raper has been in Tennessee, he said. In March, Tennessee was expected to produce over 325,000 acres of cotton in 2024. Now, predictions are at less than 225,000 acres, an extremely low number for the state. Cotton seedlings struggle to survive if planted in front of heavy rain.

“Whenever you plant cotton and you get a big rain right behind the planter most of the time you’re replanting, Booth said. “The seed population is a lot thinner than soybeans. With cotton, it doesn’t take much to rot the seed; it has a hard time coming up after a big rain. It needs at least three days of good weather, preferably more than that.”

Booth started planting during a dry spell right after Memorial Day and got some seed in the ground.  

“We pretty well had to tear up everything we planted that week, about 700 acres,” he said. “We tore up and planted back to soybeans. All of our markets are down but the biggest issue was our inputs. We had already put a preplant fertilizer out for cotton. That was a bigger expense than the soybean fertilizer would have been.”

Last year was a phenomenal year for cotton, Raper said. The crop contributed over $250 million to Tennessee’s economy. Tennessee needs a good crop to sustain its cotton infrastructure, Raper said.

“We’ve got pickers, we’ve got gins, an entire system that we have built here in the cotton belt requires material to move through,” he said. “If we have several years of that, it becomes a challenge.”

Cotton from seed is planted considerably shallower than corn or soybeans, somewhere around 3/8ths of an inch, Raper said. The seedlings dislike saturated conditions when they’re germinating and trying to come up. Most cotton growers have replanted to soybeans, which can be planted later than cotton. But Raper called them “poverty peas.”

“We don’t like planting poverty peas,” he said. “Cotton growers would much prefer planting cotton.”

However, seed companies have been supportive, Raper said. If farmers planted cotton and then had to replant to soybeans, the seed companies would usually work with them.

Booth, who went into farming right after high school graduation in 1985 and now farms 5,000 acres, agreed that the seed companies would probably give back a percentage of the seed cost to farmers who had to replant.

“Yet corn and soybeans, everything is kind of down,” he said. “It is going to be a tough year for everybody regardless of what crop you have.”