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Terry
Pepper, O’Donnell, Texas
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In 2000, the Peppers and
their cotton co-op produced one-third of all U.S. organic cotton.
Photo by Gwen Roland |
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Drought has brought
challenging times for west Texas cotton grower Terry Pepper. But thanks
to membership in an organic cotton cooperative, he is able to keep a lighthearted
approach.
“The drought is
so bad, any boll weevil who wanders this way better be packing a lunch,”
he quips.
Pepper, who farms 1,400 acres near O’Donnell, Texas, about 200 miles
west of Dallas, is coping better than most. He and his wife, LaRhea,
manage a growers’ cooperative they helped establish a decade ago.
Even if his yields are down, many of the other 30 members have had
sufficient rain or irrigate. That means they will have enough cotton
in the fall for clients such as Patagonia, the outdoor clothing
manufacturer, and Esprit clothing.
Pepper also has
some assurance that once the rains return to his part of the highlands,
he’ll go back to bringing in his regular yields of about 600 pounds per
acre. That’s because he has learned how to grow cotton without synthetic
inputs, even in semi-arid territory, and even under pressure from pests
like the weevil, beet armyworms and aphids.
“All I need is
rain,” he says. “Everything else I can pretty much keep ahead of.”
It wasn’t always
that way, not for Pepper and not for the 50-year history of cotton production
in west Texas. Both Peppers’ grandparents used herbicides. After a time,
though, diligent farming practices and a flair for thrift led even conventional
area farmers to reduce their dependence on chemicals. Pepper says weed
control in particular was not overwhelmingly difficult in the highlands
for the same reason that raising a good crop can be — limited rainfall.
“Our families
learned how and when to cultivate, and pretty soon they found they could
get by with single applications of a pre-emergent herbicide most years.”
It wasn’t that
much of a leap, then, for Pepper himself to decide to try doing without
even that initial application, and then to forego synthetic pesticides
and fertilizers too, about 10 years ago.
The system he
has devised for controlling weeds and pests includes mechanical cultivation,
cover crops, frequent rotations and attracting beneficial insects, as
well as purchase and release of pest predators on an as-needed basis.
It’s a lot of
work for Pepper and his family, including such onerous, time-consuming
tasks as hand-hoeing. “I get my two boys out in the field and get it hand-hoed
in a day,” he says. Getting it done, and done at the right times during
the season, keeps weeds in check.
Pepper also credits
his cover crops and the sandy loam soil of the highlands with keeping
weed pressure to a minimum. The soil responds well to green manure and
has improved quickly in the years since he began setting a third of his
acreage aside each season for a cover crop.
Corn is his cover
of choice. He plants it in strips throughout his cotton fields, where,
in the fiercely hot weather of August, it is usually stunted and produces
only small, insignificant ears. Pepper shreds it late in the season, leaving
the residue on the ground to hold moisture, suppress weeds and add organic
matter.
Corn cover also
helps attract beneficial insects such as ladybugs and lacewings, Pepper
says. They eat the aphids that can do a lot of harm to cotton. He is also
helped by a parasitic North American wasp called Bracon mellitor, which
feeds on beet armyworm and boll weevil larvae. When he feels the need,
he purchases small shipments of a Central American wasp called the Catolaccus
Grandis to combat weevil infestations.
He says these
efforts are usually enough to guarantee a healthy crop and to continue
improving both his soils and his bottom line. CottonPlus organic cotton,
after all, is commanding about 90 cents a pound compared to about 37 cents
a pound for conventional. Prices like that are icing on the cake for Pepper
when he thinks about all the other benefits he’s recognizing from his
decision to grow cotton without synthetic inputs. Now all he needs is
one wholly natural input to return him to peak production.
“If we get a little
rain,” he says, “I can grow the best organic cotton you’ve ever seen.”
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