NFO-244 (AV10747): US Farm Report: The Cotton Story

this is cotton in the fields waiting to be picked and cotton waiting to be ginned cotton a few years ago gin operators would gin a farmers cotton for nothing just to get the seed today the cotton farmer pays for the ginning and the gin operator still keeps the cotton seed that's only one of the problems which a cotton farmer faces cotton that's the subject of today's u.s. farm report [music] hi everybody and welcome to us farm report through the weeks on our show we will be reporting the agricultural scene to you from many parts of the country today's report comes from the San Joaquin Valley of California near Tulare where two brothers Albert and George Watte farm 900 acres of irrigated land Al George it's a pleasure to welcome both of you to our show now where did you all come to this valley from now from Orange County southern part of California now that's where down around Long Beach Long Beach yes in the Los Angeles area and why weren't you satisfied to stay there were were they making inroads on your farmland yes I'm afraid they were housing took our land no we were sharecroppers down there and they they we lost their land lost our leases so we were forced to go somewhere we searched around a lot of different places trying to decide where to locate and we came up in this area you know you liked it real well and we've been here now for about ten years what kind of farming did you do predominantly there very similar to what we do here the only really different crop we have here is cotton we have cotton barley sugar beets alfalfa [unclear] we had in Orange County only or you might say our mean crop down there was dry beans took the place of the cotton here now your family George as I understand it came to that part of California many years ago yes my dad came to California nineteen eight and my mother 1911 from from Belgium I was going to ask you about the name Watte it spelled W-A-T-T-E and it's actually Wa-tay is that the way it was pronounced in Belgium now in France five generations ago oh I see that's the we somehow got adopted to "wody" first for these reasons or something I'm not sure why but the whatas then moved from France into Belgium and eventually then to California Southern California or something like this right well now you mentioned that your production on the 900 acres here is pretty diversified I'll tell us in detail what you are raising here and how many acres of each well just roughly I couldn't tell you to the acre how many you can think we have but we have about 280 acres of cotton and which we will quite consistently run a little over 2 bail average on the cotton and oh in round figures 100 acres of alfalfa hay and oh I'd say we'll be able to run 8 to 9 ton of hay breaker that's dry and barley bar these are kind of uh-oh we can't think of anything else to plant we go to barley what do you call that kind of a break-even crop give me something to do or do you have little money on well we kind of wish we could break even I think we're a Francis is trying to get into the act here Francis is the kids pony and what's she about a year old yes about a year well leave her alone she's alright where we enjoy having her on our show and we we usually end up with about 200 acres of barley and sugar beets is we we'd rather think of ourselves as being sugar beet growers rather than anything else and we will usually raise one hundred two hundred and fifty acres of sugar beets now and we've done real well with with beets and I'd say over the ten years we've been here we've probably averaged net to the factory 26-27 ton with the 14% sugar how were your beets this year George with your sugar content okay yes it was good it was very close to 14 percent our net yield at factory this year was twenty seven and a quarter tonton before coming here to the San Joaquin Valley we were making a us farm report out of the Amarillo Texas area which as you know is a great Milo area and also a great sugar beet area and this year the to producers in the in the Amarillo area are in a little trouble on sugar content and they contend that this was caused by extremely high moisture and a disease that maybe you fellas know about cold I think it's leaf leaf spot leaf spot that's it and they they were down to old in the neighborhood of 9% sugar which is pretty doggone low isn't it yes it's very low yeah well now you have raised some seed crops to that I think we shouldn't know about our we wish we knew something about it though it's kind of a new venture you know a matter of economics I mean this agricultural picture doesn't look too healthy in this area I don't suppose it does anywhere and so we thought we'd give these seed crops a try we had 20 acres of lettuce last year but we don't know just how we came out on yet we've just harvested it and it hasn't been remilled so we don't know what our nip take will be on it and now we have a few acres of cabbage a few acres of onion and a few acres of carrots not for human consumption there proceed against you contract with the seed company well this is just another effort to find another cash crop isn't a George that kind of playing and it's something you really need in this area very badly well the Watte brothers ladies and gentlemen are certainly qualified to tell us the story of cotton and so on this week's us farm report that basically is our story cotton as it's grown here in the San Joaquin Valley of California the state of California by the way in terms of cotton production is number two in the nation exceeded only by the state of Texas and so will here the complete cotton story from Albert and George Watte a little bit later on but there is another interesting story through the valley and that's the water situation and let's talk about the the irrigation system and the fact that you really have here a double system now yes we have a actually a dual supply of water and we have to mean dual supply of water because the water that we get in our canals in our open ditches is water snow with its melting snow melt right down out of the mouth comes right down out of the mountains and when we have a real short rainfall year why they don't have much snow up in the Sierras and we're a little short on water so therefore we have to maintain another supply and we have our deep wells that we can go to them yeah it's much more desirable to get our water out of the canals and it's 'cause it's so much more inexpensive to take it out of canal than it is to pump it from the underground stratus well this is a good year in terms of snow melting isn't it it certainly is it's one of the men that ever so you fellas have been able to just let your wells lie there idle savior your well production and and tap your irrigation system from the mountains right what do you have a district set up here yes in this particular area we are in Tulare irrigation district and it's a system of canals that runs through the valley here and it's it's a it's a real good system you know we we pay an assessment to belong to the system to be in the district and then we have a water usage which is very reasonable you know you can get the water it's quite inexpensive George how far down in this part of the valley do you'd go for water what's the water table situation well the water table stands about 90 feet today and during actual pumping of course we will probably deplete the that standing level by 15-20 feet and the water table is good we don't feel that we're actually losing water due to our complexity of ditches running through the valley this main helps to maintain our our underground strap now in the that we use surface water if we turn all the wells on in and we have them tied in through an underground concrete pipeline system we can we can get about 4,000 gallons 37-3800 gallons a minute you fellas are in your second year of membership within fo right yes now what's the NFO situation through this part of the San Joaquin Valley a lot of members yes we're getting a lot of new members it's growing in leaps and bounds and it's as far as we're concerned it's the one organization that we think can really do something for us and we just we just have to have it or something like it there's nothing else like it today don't can offer us anything and where we've joined the NFO and we're real real happy with with the growth in the area mm-hmm and we're it's real young but it's up-and-coming well it seems to me what NFO has been in California enforce at least for less than two years adding the gorge that's true yes how do you feel about NFO I think it's wonderful I think it's absolutely necessary and I agree with Albert the the growth is has been tremendous in this area why did you fellows join what brought you to NFO or perhaps I should state the question what brought NFO to your attention now well uh a neighbor joined NFO one of the very first people here to join NFO came over and explain the function of NFO to us and what it was doing and at the time actually that we joined in fo wasn't strong enough in this area or wasn't organized to the degree that could do anything for us and our actual thought at the time was it cost us price of a membership and even though it wasn't gonna help us it might help a grower back in the Midwest or somewhere else and eventually it would spread over and come back to help us which it has done it's already done that yes it much quicker I guess and either of you anticipated right yeah you know you told a most interesting story that I would like for you to repeat al if you don't mind to our audience about that special wheat that you grew here a story that I think ladies and gentlemen points out the kind of communications that are being maintained by the National Farmers Organization well we planted 25 acres of wheat last year ten days prior to harvest why we've checked around the local buyers to see what they were giving for wheat and it was about the same price as barley at that time which then was about 52.5$ a ton and about a day or two after that we got a call from the buyer and wanted to know if we had this particular variety of wheat planted we said we did and he said I'd give you $60 a ton for it George and I thought well this is a pretty good shape you know and but we told him we're gonna wait we're not quite at harvest yet and we'd see the following day he called back and he said if you sold that wheat and I said no and he said well I'd give you 65 dollars a ton so we said well we'll let you know in a few days and we were on the verge of letting it go a day or two later we got a call from one of the people with NFO from northern part of California and he picked up the the fact that we had this variety if we planted on which we had the state at one of the meetings we've been doing previously and we wanna know if we still had this week I said yes and he said you haven't sold it and I said no and he said would you take 120 dollars a ton for it I said yeah I think we would this was just simply purely a matter of communications and without NFO we we would never have had the world okay the reason for this this situation was as I understand it that the producers of this this special variety lost a crop yes they needed the seed right yeah due to the excessive rainfall in the valley this year where they had their plots out for seed for the coming year they were flooded out and were unable to produce this seed and we didn't know it at the time and we were I'm sure we were sold it at $65 yeah and their thanks to NFO we got 120 these two fellas are known in this part of the San Joaquin Valley as two brothers a team that raises some of the finest cotton in the world and we thought we would devote the major portion of today's u.s. farm report to the cotton story now fellas what is the status quo of the cotton Rancher and what do you look for in the future what are some of the problems and some of the solutions now would you comment first well as cotton farmers today we're in real serious trouble prices just down to government low when you might say we're right down to rock bottom on our price and it's it's not enough to pay our costs of production I mean we're we're selling it for under our our costs right now and I'm sure that synthetics have cut into our markets and you're talking about solutions in the cotton industry I think this cotton producers Institute is a great thing this is this dollar a bail assessment they have to go ahead and work on promotion and research yes and to develop better quality cloth and shirts and what-have-you you know to help our market serve and I think this is a real step in the right direction on it would you like to add to it George yes you spoke of our problems some of our problems bill are verticillium wilt has been a real problem to us beside the price and the rest and this has taken a cut into our production and there doesn't seem to be any solution other than the longest possible rotation that is the the time between which you will come back with cotton on the same land but this is a real problem to us Allen, George I think it would be of interest to our audience all over the country and particularly those people who are not in cotton producing areas to hear the cotton story the cycle of the cotton crop so let's talk about it where does it all start out well it's quite a long process really if you went into a lot of detail but it's a matter of soil preparation prorogation planting the seed possibly in there somewhere you'd use a herbicide and then you go into cultivation irrigation pest control and then you'd be off into defoliating picking and individual now does cotton require a lot of water well in this area we it varies in different areas and soil types and temperatures and all but we can usually raise a crop of cotton here with one per year again and four to five summary organizing when this defoliating occur George usually bill when there's about two-thirds three-quarters of the cotton is actually opening now just exactly why do you defoliate it's done by airplane by the way isn't it most of it is yes it's done for the purpose of shedding believes from the cotton so that it will you'll be able to pick a cleaner product with your cotton picking machine assuming that it's picked by machine which the great majority of course is well with modern methods of cotton picking as compared to the old days when it was hand picked I can see where the cotton would have a lot more debris in it and this is a one way to avoid that isn't it that's true that helps a lot and of course along with that the the cotton ginning process has been has been greatly changed to eliminate a lot of the trash and loving another in it they do an amazing job of turning out a beautiful product in spite of the small amount of leaves and twigs that might still be in it let's get to the picking operation the cotton picker the machine the cotton picker is quite a complicated rig and a little bit dangers you have to respect it don't you yes you do is a lot of equipment there a lot of moving parts and it it takes a good operators just not everyone can get up and run one anyone can drive one up and down the row but to keep it adjusted properly keep your doll first set your moistening pads set right and use the right amount of moisture this is all tends toward getting you a good product into the gin well now you fellas use what is I guess the older type of cotton picker the single row picker yes and some of the newer pickers are what two row pickers yes what is a two row picker cost today al oh then run figures $30,000 you'd have a little money invested if you were to go on to that newer piece of equipment wouldn't you yes we would now a little while ago owl was kind enough to show us the inner workings of the cotton picker let's take a look at that film at this time we're gonna take a look inside the door the cotton picker here and see something that you can't see just driving by it's quite a complicated affair as you can see these are the spindles that actually pick the cotton and they have they have barbs and they have smooth places on them this head when it's in gear and going down the road thickened cotton every one of these spindles rotate and a little later on while we'll put the head in gear so you can see what I mean by the rotation as they rotate through they move over into this area here on these little pads moistening pads each one of these moistening pads has a tube which supply this pad with water and as this spindle passes over this fin of this rubber moistening pad it deposits a light film of water on the spindle the spindle continues to rotate around pass through the cotton these Barb's roll the cotton up they come back here on what they call the doll for this is a rubber doll fur that flexes it's not real firm it's flexible and back in the corner here this doll fur will just it's synchronized where it rubs off the smooth spot of this spindle deposits the cotton down here which in turn comes up through the suction and back into the basket and I think now we'll go ahead and roll the let the head rule for you so you can actually see what's happening [machine whirring] tell us what is the capacity of these single pickers how much cotton can they pick in a day a single rule picker in in good weather can get about 5 acres of things now the picker dumps the cotton from its hopper into the into the cotton trailer your trailers are pretty standardized aren't they George yes there are usually six bale trailers that's a that's a trailer 30 feet wide 30 feet long and about six feet high that normally holds about six bales of seed cotton now these trailers of course are Hall to the gin mill and what happens there al well they're toting to the gin and they're weighed and usually parked on the lot for a period of time until they can be taken off and in there they're toadying under the suction and the the seed cotton is actually removed from the trailers by a suction method steel tube with air moving through it that sucks the cotton off of the trailers into the gin and into the ginning process now the gin removing the cotton seeds is removing a pretty high profit thing right yes it is and as I understand it in the older days and not too long ago in fact you almost got your ginning accomplished without cost just by exchanging the cotton seeds for the services but that's changed yes it has due to the lower price now on cotton seed where we used to go in and take our cotton in we would get possibly a dollar maybe two dollars a bale credit and now it's costing us somewhere between five to seven dollars a bale over and above the scene now you talk in the cotton business about percentage of usable product is that a good term or a bad well we we call it turnout we're tentative turnout which means the the net amount of cotton that you get out of out of what you all to the gin which contains debris I don't use that term there what three items moisture moisture moisture lint foreign matter yeah and seed and so after all of that is Jim bout and the seed is taken out what is left is turnout and what percentage of turnout do you fellows accomplish well now this year we're running I'd say probably thirty about thirty three and a half percent we have some better in some worse but that's a that would be a good average now what about bad turnout I suppose that some cotton farmers do not take the care that you do to bring that cotton in there as clean as yours is and they're paying for ginning of those [unclear] are those those foreign particles that's absolutely unnecessary well this goes back to several different practices I mean a good defoliation job we feel as though helps us and see that your pickers are in good condition and that you don't pick when the cotton is has heavy dew on it now start too early in the morning and the operation and the operator and the overseeing of the machines is very important in this well it would seem that the cleaner the cotton the better the cotton farmer your gym manager here in the Tulare area mr. J Abney has some very flattering and complimentary things to say about the wadi brothers and their cotton well they are top producers period and so far this year i would say they they are have the top rates of not only in this gin but i would defy any jim to match their particular particular grades production wise I understand from hearing stories around the country there there again they are excelling what is the investment in this kind of a cotton gin well to replace this cotton gin today would probably run somewhere around $400,000 Jorge how much to bales away well bale of cotton is commonly referred to as 500 pounds however there is a minimum and a maximum but 500 pounds is a standard cotton veil how is cotton graded well it's graded by a government classing office and it it middling cotton is your standard of good cotton and it goes on down to strict lows and good ordinaries and on down we feel that on a good year good far like we have this year we're picking probably 95% middling cotton and this usually goes in direct ratio of good turnout and just generally a good job in good weather you will get good grades what does the government inspector actually do does he reach in there and grab some cotton out of each bale no they come on on the bale yard and they cut part of the burlap wrapping from the bale and take a sample of each bale and then this is it's not graded right on the yard it's taken to the government classing office and they have professional people that do this mm-hmm each bale is classed individually is cotton graded according to what fibre length George is that the way it's graded the stop the hub the longer the fiber length the higher the grade yes there there are a few things which which determine that but the fiber length and well and that's in direct proportion to its strength and this is done by hand manually but it takes many years of experience I understand for these people to be able to determine the difference between staple length of an inch or an inch and sixteenth or whatever the case may be this has been a most interesting experience for me and I want to thank both of you for being on our show it's been our pleasure Albert and George Watte two outstanding farmers and ranchers from the San Joaquin Valley of California us farm report is seen on this station each week until we meet again goodbye everybody [music]