Welcome to the Southwestern Cotton Ginning Research Laboratory Non-Chemical Defoliation Experiment
Because of the generous cooperation of many, the defoliator was tested in 8 fields in 3 states.
Weslaco, TX July 2004. Scientists were almost as thick as the
cotton.
The impact of thermal treatment is visible the day of
treatment.
At the University of California's West Side Research and Extension Center.
Producers attending the USDA-ARS and UC Shafter Field Day check out cooked cotton.
Refueling while treating stripper cotton on the High Plains of West Texas.
Thermal treatments at New Mexico State University's Plant
Science Research Center near Las Cruces.
The six treatment and harvest date combinations
investigated in Las Cruces.
Numbers indicate the days between
treatment and harvest.
A commercial producer of organic cotton tests the thermal defoliation apparatus on Acala and Pima varieties.
The predecessor apparatus was a tractor-towed one row device.
Adjusting treatment temperature (between 250 and 350 F) in 2002.
2002 thermal defoliator shows its stuff.
Entomologist Brad Lewis monitors leaf respiration
immediately after thermal treatment.
Professor Lewis quantified
insect mortality in 2001.
Thermal treatments had
significantly fewer whiteflies and aphids.
Thermal defoliation results are discussed in the paper
Experimental Thermal Defoliator Trials
Journal of Cotton Science
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to cooperating scientists:
Carlos Armijo (USDA-ARS Las Cruces, NM)
Alan Brashears (USDA-ARS Lubbock, TX)
Allan Showler (USDA-ARS Weslaco, TX)
Michael McGuire and Jay Bancroft (USDA-ARS Shafter, CA)
David McAllister III (USDA-ARS Clemson, SC)
Brad Lewis (New Mexico State University)
Peter Goodell, Larry Godfrey, Bruce Roberts (2003)
Robert Hutmacher and Brian Marsh (University of California)
Wayne LePori (Texas A & M University)
other key collaborators:
Steve Jaeger (Railroad Commission of Texas)
Bryan Stegall (NM Propane Dealers Association)
Ed Scott (West Side Research and Extension Center)
Doci Alvarez (Alvarez Farms, La Union, NM)
and many others.
Funding provided by the Propane Education and Research Council is gratefully acknowledged.
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Last updated 8 March 2005