Saturday Marks the end Of Chilling Injury Risk (at least through early May).
4-25-2024
It looks like this early planting opportunity will kick off on Saturday for cotton. Planting on both Thursday and Friday represents some chilling injury risk as night temperatures will reach mid-40’s. So, what exactly is chilling injury? We have two key crops that are currently a focus, namely peanuts and cotton. The causes in cotton are well understood as cotton, - and peanuts to a lesser degree, however both plants are similar. What we know about cotton is that when seeds have begun to swell (called imbibing) with water and are exposed to temperature below 50 degrees, it will have some degree of chilling injury. The colder, and the longer the exposure - the more injury that will occur. Results of this injury include less ability to withstand other stresses, and sometimes reduce roots systems often impacting yield. It does not necessarily kill the new plants, but it also will not contribute to the opportunity for the maximum cotton success. You must also consider that-year-in-and-year out, the sweet spot for cotton planting has been most of May, although a few acres of April planting on productive soils makes sense.
Planting today (Thursday) would expose seed to two cycles of chilling risk for a total of 18 hours with air temperatures below 50, while tomorrow (Friday) will only have half of that time, but the same low temperature. By Saturday, the risk disappears. I don’t see a benefit to taking a risk at this point so my recommendation for cotton is to wait until Saturday before planting any cotton seed.
Peanuts might be able to take a slightly lower temperature as they are planted deeper and slightly more cool weather tolerance. Nevertheless, I would compare the risk of chilling injury against the earliness of the season and potential benefit or other risks of early planting.
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