THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 10, 1995 TAG: 9505090115
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: COASTAL JOURNAL
SOURCE: MARY REID BARROW
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
Farmer Bonney Bright is turning back the agricultural clock this spring and planting cotton, a crop that hasn't been raised here since the 1940s.
That was back when there was a cotton gin in Pungo and farmers grew cotton just as they grew ``corn and taters'' or wheat and soybeans.
But come this September, about 250 acres in the southern half of Virginia Beach will be white with cotton, just like old times. Bright is staggering his planting with a Chesapeake farmer and a North Carolina farmer, who also are planting cotton for the first time. That way their fields can be harvested one after the other by a man who owns a cotton gin in Holland.
``He will pick it, haul it and gin it, Bright said, ``and all we're doing is growing it.''
But the growing isn't easy, said Stanley J. Winslow, an agronomist with Peele Agricultural Consulting Inc. in Camden, N.C., who has been advising Bright. From start to finish, cotton is a crop to be babied.
Maintenance even begins with the cotton seed before it reaches the farmer's hands. Dark gray when harvested, the seed is a purplish color when planted because it has been treated with a fungicide.
Cotton is so sensitive that the first 48 hours the seed is in the ground determines its vigor. ``If it has taken up soil moisture below 55 degrees, it gets a chilling injury,'' Winslow said.
``When the plants first begin to emerge, the leaves are yellow and sickly looking,'' he went on. ``It's real slow growing and hard to get up. You can't have it cold and can't have it damp.''
A lot that goes on during those first few days also makes a difference in how the cotton is graded at the end of the season. Fiber length, thickness and strength depend on factors like soil quality and temperature.
If all goes well those first couple of days, cotton plants should be 12 to 15 inches tall by mid-June and producing what farmers call ``pinhead squares'' at the stem ends. From the pinhead square comes the bloom. The yellowish white flowers should give Bright cause for a July 4 celebration.
``Once it is pollinated, the bloom dries up,'' Winslow said, ``and the boll, or seed pod, is there - small as an eraser on a pencil.''
The boll, covered with a segmented pod, becomes egg shaped as it grows. A young boll is green and succulent and is inviting to insects, like the big, bad boll weevil, a beetle that lays its eggs inside the boll.
The weevil was brought under control in the 1970s, but Bright's field, like all other cotton fields, will be monitored for the insects with pheromone traps. Even so, cotton must be sprayed for other insects in mid-summer. It also must be sprayed with a growth regulator to keep the plants compact and easy to harvest.
The boll hardens as the summer wears on and when it finally dries out, it cracks open around Sept. 1. ``The cotton starts fluffing out,'' Winslow said, ``and by the end of September, it will be ready for harvest.''
Despite the high maintenance, growing cotton in Virginia is a coming thing. Last year 42,000 acres were grown in the state and this year 95,000 acres are being grown, Bright said. (The biggest cotton year in Virginia was 1926 when 114,000 acres were grown.)
Cotton's comeback is due to several factors, one being the ability to control the boll weevil. ``Also people went to polyester,'' Bright said. ``Now they're coming back to cotton.''
And so is Virginia Beach.
P.S. FIRST-TIME BIRDERS, take a bird walk with Virginia Beach Audubon Society members anytime between 8 a.m. and noon Saturday at Norfolk Botanical Garden. Walks begin at the picnic area.
SEE OPEN HEARTH COOKING from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday at historic Lynnhaven House, 4405 Wishart Road.
GARDENS BY THE SEA, a garden tour sponsored by the Norfolk Botanical Garden Society, will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday on the oceanside of Atlantic Avenue. Tour gardens are at 108 and 112 69th Street, and 7016, 7106, 8208, 8402 and 8404 Oceanfront. Tickets are available at any garden that day or by calling 441-5830. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know about
Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555. Enter
category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net. ILLUSTRATION: Photos by MARY REID BARROW
Stanley Winslow, left, an agronomist, consults with Bonney Bright, a
Beach farmer who is growing cotton for the first time. From start to
finish, cotton is a crop to be babied.
by CNB