Narrative and Details
Around five to six years ago, Dallas started growing cotton and never looked back. After fifty years, cotton has come back to his district and is becoming more and more popular. This is due to development of new varieties for the climate, the round bale harvester, and water becoming more readily available. The area continues to profit from the cotton industry and sees a positive outlook for the commodity in the future.
With five hundred pound bales, Dallas aims to grow fourteen bales per hector. In order to reach this goal, he must irrigate the cotton. Flood irrigation with from the nearby river supplies the cotton with the water needed to flourish. On average Dallas goes through fifty mega liters a day. This system
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is completely run from his phone automatically, so he doesn’t have to worry about syphoning water with pipes. Cotton is graded on its color.
If the air is more humid, it causes the cotton to be discolored. The better the grade the better the premium for the cotton will be. Dallas said that the premium amounts are usually a lot lower than the deductions. Overall Dallas is really happy to be a part of a growing cotton industry and its bright future.
Reflective Summary
The innovation Dallas was starting to use for his irrigation shows just how advanced the agriculture world has grown to over the years. In climates and soils like Australia’s where it is very difficult to grow certain crops, the cotton grows are definitely defying theses odds.
Dallas’s production of cotton shows just how much better Australians are at producing cotton than Americans. Americans produce on average ten bales per acre while he produces about twelve to thirteen bales and acre on average. Even though the climate isn’t very good for certain crops in Australia, it’s perfect for cotton causing it to beat American production numbers.
Going to the cotton farm was completely worth our time. With most of us never seeing cotton before, including myself, it was intriguing to see how it was produced. The cotton farm was a stop where I learned a lot and possibly apply it to my future
job. Rice Farm: 3/16/17 Narrative and Details We went to two farmer’s rice farms and they were both very similar, and I learned things at both. At the first stop we went to, he recently moved from flood irrigating with black siphon tubes to automatic water gates that he can control from his phone. This was a very similar system to what Dallas uses for his cotton. In order to flood irrigate the paddocks must be very flat, so they have to laser level the fields every five to eight years. This is done with a pole with sensors on it placed in the middle of the field and another on the leveler connected to the GPS controlled tractor. The sensors on the poles communicate with the leveler to add or subtract soil for a desired slope. At the second the second farm, the farmer produced eight to nine varieties of rice a year. The crop that he showed to us was sixty hectares and was a seed crop. The rice is directly drilled into the ground, and flooded right away to initiate growing. He sells his crop right away because he doesn’t want to mix crops in storage. Both rice grower said that the biggest issue with agriculture in Australia was water security. If they have water, they can grow many crops than without it. At the time of our visit, a water reform was going through their legislation that would hopefully make it easier to get water. Both rice farms were into innovation and making changes to improve the industry for the better. They had open minds and saw great things in the future. Reflective Summary Never seeing a rice field before, let alone walking in one, was an experience I will never forget. The smells of the fragrant rice were amazing, and I was not aware that rice had a smell to it. I also did not know before the trip that white rice was brown rice with the outer bran and germ removed. I will forever look at rice differently whenever I eat it. Another thing I thought was very interesting was the laser leveling done for flood irrigation. We have GPS here in Iowa, but the technology they used to make the field the right slope astounded me. This goes to show that agriculture is making vast improvements all across the world. Something that we don’t have to worry about here in Iowa that they do is water usage. In Iowa, we have the blessing of having just enough rain to supplement our crop’s needs. It’s easy for me to compare their water needs to California’s because they both depend on water for agriculture production. Maybe one day Iowa will get to this point. We should look to Australia for their input because according to them, they are very resourceful in this area. The rice farms in Australia were extremely educational, and it was completely worth our time.
America’s Team Will the real “America’s Team” please stand up? This term is widely used throughout the media when referring to the Dallas Cowboys. “America’s Team” was first coined some 40 years ago while introducing them for a feature film by the legendary sport writer Bob Ryan. In the following years, because of their success and mass media exposure they were a team that America as a nation could identify with ,so the name stuck. The Cowboys since those days has regressed into a very mediocre team who only looks for moral instead of actual Super Bowl victories.
...rn Alabama. Almost 10,000 acres of commercial citrus was grown in Mobile and Baldwin counties by 1920. In recent years Alabama farm income from cattle exceeded that from cotton. Alabama's landscape today is dominated by woodlands, pine plantations, scattered pastureland, and small rural and suburban homesteads that stretch between major metropolitan areas. Few modern Alabamians depend totally on agricultural production for their livelihood, but as of 2005 there were 43,500 farms on 8.6 million acres that sold over $3.3 billion worth of commodities” (Mitchell, 2007). The wiregrass region is agriculturally diverse producing cotton, peanuts, poultry, cattle, some vegetables, and forestry products. Following cotton, peanuts dominated the Wiregrass during most of the twentieth century. Therefore, Alabama and the Wiregrass agriculture continues growing for you and me.
Thompson, Jennifer. Cotton, Ronald. “Picking Cotton.” Ferris State University. Williams Auditorium, Big Rapids, MI. 15 April 2014. Guest Lecture.
The crops started many years ago, with the switch grass, which is now made for bundling and farm feed, with out the switch grass we may not have the dairy and poultry we have today. Making sure our animals are fed well, is and important thing for the people and the communities. Cotton is another big thing Mississippi has started. Without cotton we would not have the comfortable cloths we wear today, and the towels we dry off with and the pillows and the blankets we sleep with at night, cotton is also used for many medical reason such as gauze for after surgery, and to keep the medicines fresh such as ibuprofen. I am proud to say that cotton is playing an even greater role in our every day lives.
First of all, The United States was out in search for rich soil to plant many fields of cotton.
The Texas Legislature is far too archaic to provide consistent leadership for a state government; Congress has become too enmeshed with the executive branch and leaves blurry lines drawn in its separation of powers. The ideal legislature would be a modernized version of what the Texas Constitution created.
As Jensen points out, farming and industry accounts for the vast majority of total water usage in the world (477). The increasingly scarce resource is a necessary ingredient when growing food. Technology continuously improves to make it easier for farmers to grow crops while using less water. Scientists at the University of Georgia utilize what they term “variable rate irrigation” to let farmers automate the current systems of irrigation to water only the crops that need it (Gies). This is an example of retrofitting current farms, but there is a new way of farming coming to cities that reuses practically all of its water and stakes claim much less acreage in the process. The future of agriculture belongs to vertical and urban farming. These types of farms reduce the use of water, chemicals (such as pesticides, herbicides and fungicides), soil and space (The Economist). These farms are so cutting edge that they are mostly in the experimental stages. Firms like Famgro farms are testing “stackable” farming systems that can scale with demand, even further reducing waste. Famgro’s stackable farms are ideal for cityscapes where land is at a premium; furthermore, reaping the added benefit of being in close proximity to the customers that they serve. Customers will enjoy high quality, fresh produce at only a slightly
Secondly, the demand for cotton grew tremendously as cotton became an important raw material for the then developing cotton industries in the North and Britain. The growing of cotton revived the Southern economy and the plantations spread across the south, and by 1850 the southern U.S produced more than 80% of cotton all over the world. As this cotton based economy of the south grew so did the slave labor to work in these large scale plantations since they were more labor-intensive...
The "technological retardist" theories are strongest in considering the erosion of "King Cotton` s" pre eminence, due in part to America` s competition and, the critics suggest, the British cotton manager` s lack of judgement. It is said that the slow adoption of the ring spindle in spinning, and the low uptake of the automatic loom in weaving seriously hampered those industries` competitive edge.
During the many events and troubles that were occurring throughout the late 40s and 50s, tensions have increased between the North and South. South was on the edge of secession since they were threatening to get what they want, more land to continue the growth of slavery and expand their operations and sources of income. The North didn't want that to happen since more land given to the South would lead to even more political problems and it would leave the North at a disadvantage. The North and the world were dependent on access to cotton, said Hammond. The commodity that was processed by both northern and European manufactures. Worldwide industry would come to halt if not for the availability of cotton. Hammond then goes on to mention that if the South were to stop producing and selling cotton for 3 years, all places of civilization will start to collapse, and they would feel obligated to help the South and obtain their cotton again. Since the price of cotton increased in the South, it was cheaper to get cotton from Egypt and India and supply it to European
The development of the most beneficial technology in the Old South that we all know as the cotton gin was developed by Yale graduate Eli Whitney in the year 1793. This took place shortly after his relocation from Massachusetts to Georgia when it was brought to his attention from his former manager that harvesting cotton was both time consuming and unbeneficial to plantation owners. As a result, he was then asked to develop a resolution for support; thus the cotton gin was born. This extraordinary machine had the ability to separate cotton from its seeds through hand cranking. The acquisition of the cotton gin was the fact that cotton evolved into the most economically beneficial crop in the Old South. This became the primary reason for the use of the slogan “King Cotton”.
While the north was undergoing an "industrial revolution," the south remained agriculturally based. Rice, which was the first grown in South Carolina in the early 1960's, was a very promising harvest. Between 1820and 1850, the production of rice nearly tripled, making it a leading colonial crop along the seacoast of South Carolina and Georgia. Rice had definitely proved to be a "magic crop" of the South. (Boyer, pg.96)
The cotton gin is truly a remarkable breakthrough in agriculture, as it not only elevated cotton and textile production but also strengthened the power of superior societies. The creation of this equipment was done by Eli Whitney and funded by Catherine Greene. Similar to the birth of other creations, the cotton gin research and construction was driven by an increasing need in America. Specifically, given the complications in tobacco sales and manufacture, Catherine Greene hired Eli Whitney to help American farmers in assisting the cotton industry. With this comes the invention of the cotton gin that allowed for the faster separation of ...
...ry clean. When the fabric is washed or steamed pressed, tension is applied to the fabric, causing it to shrink to its natural size. Drying on high heat will set the shrunken size. Due to this reason, when cotton fabric is first washed, it mostly shrinks. Next, cotton retains water. This is because cotton absorbs and holds water. Once cotton gets wet, it stays wet. Cotton clothing absorbs sweat and becomes heavier especially after sweating during exercises. Last, cotton is easily damaged by sunlight. The material color begins to fade after a few years, particularly if exposed to direct sunlight. Cotton tends to damaged by mold and mildew under constant wet, humid condition which can be difficult to remove from the material because it is a natural fiber. Hence, cotton is not a ideal clothing for long periods of time outdoor activities such as lawn furniture. (Michael)
Sandra Postel, on the other hand, has a different opinion than Danielle’s. She proposed that “without increasing water productivity in irrigation, major food-producing regions will not have enough water to sustain crop production”.