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Jordan Powers: 0:00

Welcome to Cultivating Curiosity, where we get down and dirty with the experts on all the ways science and agriculture touch our lives, from what we eat to how we live. I'm Jordan Powers.

Emily Cabrera: 0:12

And I'm Emily Cabrera. We're from the University of Georgia's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

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Jordan Powers: 0:20

So Em and I made the trek today down to Tifton, one of our favorite spots to come and visit. And we are here with Camp Hand, assistant professor in the CAES Department of Crop and Soil Sciences and member of the UGA Cotton Team. Camp, thank you so much for hosting us down in Tifton.

Camp Hand: 0:36

Oh yeah, glad y'all came down. Everybody in Athens is welcome to come to Tifton anytime.

Jordan Powers: 0:40

And he means it too. Every time we come down here, it is the best, well and we're actually here in the studio right now of Talkin' Cotton, your podcast,

Camp Hand: 0:46

Yup.

Jordan Powers: 0:46

Which we'll get into in a little bit. But before we dive into some of that content, let's start from the top. You're a key member of the UGA Cotton Team.

Camp Hand: 0:53

Mmm-hmm.

Jordan Powers: 0:53

It's a highly collaborative, UGA Cooperative Extension program that works directly with growers, county agents and industry partners. How is this team uniquely positioned to bridge these spheres in supporting Georgia's number one agronomic crop?

Camp Hand: 1:07

I think it is so cool that we have so many people covering so many aspects of production. The fun part is that we all work together, me and Phillip Roberts and John Snider. Those are my closest collaborators, you know. And so we do a lot of work together, but it is a highly collaborative team of folks. And so even talking about some of the stuff we've seen this year with cotton leaf roll dwarf virus, right? You rope in Dr. Sudeep Bag, our virologist, Dr. Peng Chee, our cotton breeder, Dr. Kemerait, our plant pathologist, Dr. Roberts, our entomologist, Dr Snider, our physiologist and me. So, I mean, like we all talk on a pretty regular basis about some of that stuff. It really just creates an open line of communication. We get together every other month and cook lunch at the gin, you know, and hang out and cut up and all this stuff. But then we talk about the crop, and it's like, "What are y'all seeing? What's out there?" You know, stuff like that. It is a highly collaborative team that really cares about cotton production in this state. It makes it a lot of fun to have that, and that's something that's very unique here.

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Emily Cabrera: 2:09

When Camp talks about getting together at the gin, he's referring to the cotton micro gin on the UGA Tifton Campus. Despite the name, the micro gin is anything but small. This facility houses several pieces of large machinery that work together to remove seeds and other plant debris from cotton. Researchers from UGA regularly send cotton samples to the micro gin, where the staff evaluates the quality and quantity of the cotton and shares that data with researchers. The micro gin is crucial to the cotton team's mission to improve cotton production in Georgia. We'll link to a video highlighting the UGA cotton team's micro gin in the show notes.

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Camp Hand: 2:49

I'd interviewed for jobs whenever I was coming out of graduate school or talked to people at other institutions, and they don't work that way. That's what makes us so unique, is you talk to folks at other institutions and they're like"Cotton Team, what'shat's that?" It's kind of hard to explain, but it makes us very unique.

Jordan Powers: 3:04

It's just incredible to hear the brilliant research minds coming together. But then also, like having lunch at the gin, like...

Camp Hand: 3:09

Yeah!

Jordan Powers: 3:09

It's just from the outside, at least, seems like this perfect balance of brilliant research and pushing the industry forward. But then also the collaboration that you can have a lot of brilliant people, but if they're not getting together and not communicating.

Camp Hand: 3:21

Then everybody's just doing their own thing.

Jordan Powers: 3:23

Exactly. That's fascinating.

Camp Hand: 3:25

Next time y'all come, we'll try to work it out to where we cook lunch at the gin.

Jordan Powers: 3:28

I was gonna say, wait a second.

Emily Cabrera: 3:29

Yeah, we missed an opportunity here [laughter and overlapping talk from all].

Jordan Powers: 3:32

Our timing was off, Em. We know that you are a cotton agronomist. There's a lot to break down with that before we dive into what your day to day looks like. What is cotton agronomy and why is it an important role for the cotton industry?

Camp Hand: 3:46

Cotton agronomy, I feel like, is kind of a pretty holistic type role. What I work on is everything from planting up to harvest. We look at seed quality, we look at seeding rates, we look at plant growth regulators, defoliation and termination of that cotton crop. Even to a certain extent, you kind of trace it through the gin process and start looking at fiber quality as it relates to different management practices and varieties and things like that. I need to know a little bit of everything there is to know, from planting to harvesting the crop and help growers out the best I can.

Emily Cabrera: 4:20

And I guess to piggyback on that. Why cotton? We have all these other commodities.

Camp Hand: 4:24

Yeah.

Emily Cabrera: 4:24

What was it about cotton that drew you?

Camp Hand: 4:26

I grew up around the industry. My dad worked for an ag chemical company, and so I grew up riding with my dad. We would go and check fields and stuff like that. And cotton is just something that if you got it, you got it, you know, kind of thing, and it's like most of the people that are in the cotton business now, it's like in your blood, almost. And that's the way it was for me. My family lives in a little town in Mississippi called Bolton, and that's where I was born and lived for my first five years. But, that town ran on cotton. I mean, they have a gin, some of the biggest growers in the state of Mississippi are right there in that little town. If it wasn't for cotton, I mean, a lot of smaller towns in the southern part of the United States wouldn't exist. That's really kind of where I found myself was in a few of these smaller towns. And so, whenever I decided to go to college, I really enjoyed working in the garden with my granddad. And so, that was something that we always had fun with every summer. And so, I originally was doing fruit and vegetable production in horticulture. So my first two degrees are in horticulture. But then I also had a part time job with the soybean specialist at Auburn. His name is Dr. Dennis Delaney, and we actually got to do one of the cooler things that I think that anybody can do is work on the Old Rotation at Auburn, and that's the oldest continuous cotton study in the world.

Jordan Powers: 5:43

Wow!

Camp Hand: 5:44

So, yeah, it's pretty cool. It was started in like 1896. It was my last summer with him, with Dr. Delaney, before I started my master's degree. He let me fertilize it by myself, like he trusted me to do it alone. And I was like, man, that is so cool. You know, I was fertilizing something that was 120 years, you know, worth a worth of work, and so that, you know, seeing the Old Rotation, really, to me, was one of the coolest things that I had ever done. And I was in fruit and vegetable and the reason that I came to the University of Georgia, I got my PhD here in Tifton, so shout out to the Tifton Campus, right? [laughter from Jordan] But I came and worked for Dr. Stanley Culpepper. And the reason that I came to work for him was on the vegetable side, but he also covers cotton, so I got back in the cotton business.

Emily Cabrera: 6:28

Got back to your roots.

Camp Hand: 6:29

Yeah, that's right. And so this job came open right as I was coming out of school, and I applied, and it all worked out, and all fell into place.

Jordan Powers: 6:36

Here we are now. You're sitting here talking to us (laughter).

Camp Hand: 6:37

That's right, that's right.

Jordan Powers: 6:39

Well, we're grateful for it. What does a typical day look like for you?

Camp Hand: 6:42

I guess it depends on the time of year. You know, it's kind of interesting to see how it ebbs and flows. Between January 10th and March 10th, I'm going to be on the road in the counties across Georgia with our county agents doing production meetings. So, we're going to be informing growers on the research that we've done in the last year, the things that we think are going to help them improve their operations a little bit, things they need to be looking at, and new technologies and stuff like that. So, we do 47 of those meetings from January 10th to about March 10th, and so we spend a lot of time on the road. Then, I mean, I don't want to say it like this, but there's a lull from March 10th until about the middle of April. That's kind of when I get to catch up on office work [laughter] and start to get ready for plot work and stuff like that on the station. And about April 15th, we start planting. And we plant from April 15th until about June 10th. We do about 100 acres worth of plot work here on the Tifton Campus. And then we've also got some stuff on some of our satellite stations, like Midville and Plains and Attapulgus and places like that. And so we plant from April 15th to June 10th, and then it's off to the races in terms of collecting data, doing graduate student projects, stuff like that. And so, it kind of picks up in June and July with PGR applications. Start to get a lot of phone calls from agents during that time. And then in August, it picks up on field days. And so we're back on the road in August and going to the different stations across the state, doing field days. And then I start doing some defoliation meetings. I go do probably 10 of those a year talking about best management practices for defoliating this crop. What we need to be looking at, the impact that the year has had on the crop. And so on the road pretty well through September, and then we start picking. So, depending on the time of year, a day in the life looks very different. That's what makes it interesting, is it's always something different. It's always something new and fun and exciting. It definitely keeps life interesting.

Jordan Powers: 8:33

Never a boring day.

Camp Hand: 8:34

No, no.

Emily Cabrera: 8:35

You made reference to stations.

Camp Hand: 8:38

Yeah.

Emily Cabrera: 8:38

Can you talk a little bit about the importance of stations and what those research...

Camp Hand: 8:42

Oh man. Yeah.

Emily Cabrera: 8:43

Yeah.

Camp Hand: 8:43

Yeah, the experiment stations are vital to what we do. We couldn't do our jobs without the experiment stations. You know, I do a lot of my stuff in Midville, in it's on the southern end of Burke County, the Southeast Research and Education Center. And I would consider Anthony Black, who's the manager, a dear friend of mine. And he's taught me a lot over the last three or four years about cotton. And if I want to call somebody and know what's going on, I call Anthony. Him and the whole crew there, they're great folks, and they run a great operation. We couldn't operate in Extension without the RECs. We have got to have good, reliable Research and Education Centers to be able to do the work that we're talking about in the winter time. It is absolutely vital to what we do and the and the land grant mission.

Emily Cabrera: 9:26

And I'll say, there's something impressive about coming onto those research stations and looking out and seeing the diversity of plots...

Camp Hand: 9:33

Oh yeah.

Emily Cabrera: 9:33

It's a giant farm, it's a research and experimentation farm, and to see the diversity of projects going on, and know that there are a team of people looking at various aspects of agronomy.

Camp Hand: 9:45

Oh, yeah. Well, and even the planning aspect, like, it's so interesting to talk to Anthony about how he plans, how he rotates things. It takes a lot of planning and a lot of forward thought on their part to get the kind of diversity you're talking about. So it's a really, really neat operation in my mind.

Jordan Powers: 10:02

It's a big, fascinating puzzle.

Camp Hand: 10:04

Yes, it is.

Jordan Powers: 10:05

It really is. And we'll include a link in the show notes to the RECs for listeners whowho might want to learn more about the work that they're doing over there. What excites you most about your work?

Camp Hand: 10:14

Oh, man, I love how it can be different all the time. You know, and each year brings a new challenge. And so, it's not like I do the same study two years in a row and get the same exact thing two years in a row. It's always something different. And so, last year, you know, we had some really unique insect pressure that we don't normally get in the state of Georgia, and that has long lasting impacts. It's something that I hope we don't ever deal with again, but that has long lasting impacts on the crop. And so, I've got to start thinking like, "Okay, well, we had this, what are we going to be doing in September?" So, the same thing this year, the heat in the month of June has long lasting impacts on us, and even delayed planting because it rained so much in May, you know. So we start doing that, and then we got all this heat in June, and it starts impacting things that we're thinking about right now as we approach the finish line. But, even unique issues to the state of Georgia and even the Southeast, I mean, that's what kind of gets me excited, is helping our guys out, you know, find solutions to their problems. One thing that kind of cropped up last year has been a problem for a long time, but these white-tailed deer are just wearing cotton out, and so we've started doing a lot of work on that, and getting a lot of support from the Georgia Cotton Commission, Cotton Incorporated, Georgia Farm Bureau, to try to get some data to help our guys out. It's just always something different. And that's what's so exciting about it, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.

Jordan Powers: 11:35

Yeah, the diversity of what you're dealing with and how you can pull together, and that's what's always fascinating to me, is just learning about the breadth of expertise through CAES and Extension, and that you have entomology and plant pathology and agronomy and all of these things that come together to make the crop. And at the end of the day, for a lot of us, the only thing we're thinking about is the blue jeans or the t-shirt or the thing that we're buying. But there's so much work and research and expertise...

Camp Hand: 11:57

Oh yeah.

Jordan Powers: 11:57

Being poured into it, and it's just, I'm geeking out.

Camp Hand: 12:00

That's the cool thing, is that we've got faculty in the college that cover multiple crops and like, yeah, that's exciting, right? It is literally something different within a day, right? With what I do, it's the same crop, but it's still so different. It just makes it a lot of fun.

Emily Cabrera: 12:14

And I know you just mentioned the end product. The thing that, that drives cotton production is the end user.

Camp Hand: 12:21

Yeah.

Emily Cabrera: 12:21

Sustainability has become a buzzword lately, but behind the buzz is a very real concern, and consumers are becoming increasingly interested in knowing how their clothing is being produced. How are Georgia's cotton growers implementing sustainable practices in production? And maybe that even goes back to the research that's done on those stations.

Camp Hand: 12:40

Yeah, there has been a big push in the entire cotton industry to verify that the crop is sustainably produced. Some people think there's a negative connotation with it, but I mean really, cotton has such a neat story to tell in terms of sustainability, even from boll weevil eradication, right? Before boll weevil eradication, cotton growers were spraying insecticides 17 or 18 times a year.

Emily and Jordan: 13:04

Wow, whoa.

Camp Hand: 13:04

Right? To even think about getting a crop. Now, with boll weevil eradication and Bt cotton, we're at two insecticide applications a year.

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Emily Cabrera: 13:14

The boll weevil is a species of beetle that feeds on cotton buds and flowers. In the early 1900s this pest swept through the US and devastated cotton production throughout the South, where the majority of cotton is grown. The success of the Southeast Boll Weevil Eradication Program has played a major role in the revival of Georgia's cotton industry. We've included a link to the UGA Cooperative Extension publication that provides an in depth overview of cotton production and the boll weevil in Georgia.

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Camp Hand: 13:44

And so that's a success story, you know, talking about, hey, we're getting creative. We're finding sustainable ways to manage these pests, right? And we're potentially reducing pesticide inputs, but also making money, because the sustainability thing is a two part thing, right? Well, three parts, I guess. It's got to be good for the environment, and then growers have got to make money, and then there's the social aspect, which is what you're talking about with the end user. They want that sustainable product. They want it to be verified. And that's something the National Cotton Council has been really pushing with the US Cotton Trust Protocol. And so that is that verification tool for these growers. You know, that's the kind of stuff that they want to know about. I would say that cotton is extremely sustainable, you know, in terms of being environmentally conscious, but also, we're trying to make the decisions to help keep our folks in business too.

Jordan Powers: 14:34

There has to be an ROI.

Camp Hand: 14:36

No doubt.

Jordan Powers: 14:36

To put food on the table. Absolutely. So, in our episode with Anna Scheyett, she referenced you as a champion in the effort to address rural and farm stress. It's a very important topic, really across the world, but something that we're really focusing on here. In your role with UGA Extension, you work directly with farmers, as we just talked about, and have built relationships based on trust. Why is it important to support farmers in this specific way? Beyond kind of the hard science of growing one of Georgia's top commodities.

Camp Hand: 15:03

Yeah, Anna's the best.

Jordan Powers: 15:04

She's wonderful.

Camp Hand: 15:06

She's awesome. And I mean, that relationship is so cool, because I met Jennifer Dunn at some of our production meetings.

Jordan Powers: 15:13

Also wonderful.

Camp Hand: 15:13

She would come and she would talk. And I remember I pulled Jennifer to the side one day, and I was like, "Hey, this is so cool. What y'all do." And I was like, "Don't get bogged down that, like nobody's stopping and talking to you right now," or whatever, because I was like, "This is important." And she was like, "Oh, thanks. Like, why do you think that?" And I was like, "Because I've been there." I mean, I would say that there's more people that have been there than we know about because a lot of people aren't willing to talk about it, you know. And so that's kind of one thing that I really relate to Jennifer and Anna about, is that, "Hey, we just got to talk about this."

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Jordan Powers: 15:44

Jennifer Dunn is a former rural health agent for UGA Cooperative Extension. Dunn now serves as the Deputy Assistant Commissioner for Field Operations South with the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities. Anna Scheyett is a former dean of the UGA School of Social Work and professor in the CAES Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication. We'll link to our episode with Anna and the Rural Georgia, Growing Stronger website in the show notes.

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Camp Hand: 16:12

And that relationship has led to me and Anna working on stuff together. Like a lot of this deer stuff, it takes a toll on these guys. And so, I told Anna, I was like, "Hey, there's something here on the deer thing." These guys are staying up all night. A lot of times they're alone, and you can't farm all day and stay up all night and do what you need to do on the deer. And so I told her, I was like, "Hey, this is a big deal." And so she and I kind of developed a survey that we've started distributing to growers to try to get more information on how this is impacting their well-being. It's really cool to me that that relationship has evolved into something like that. She and I have worked on other stuff too, like shooting videos, and I've done a webinar. That's because of my relationship with Anna, and been on the blog and stuff like that. But it's led to, like, stuff that's going to help our growers out and help find some solutions for them too, and express that, hey, it's not just they're losing money, it's affecting them mentally too, and affecting their home life. That's something that is so cool to me. But talking about the relationships with growers, I mean, whenever I was in college, we were very heavily involved in a group called Young Life. I don't know if y'all know what that is.

Jordan Powers: 17:15

I do.

Camp Hand: 17:15

But, it's, yeah. So we led as volunteers with Young Life at high schools and middle schools in Auburn and even here in Tifton, whenever I was in graduate school. But one thing they always talked about in Young Life was that you got to earn the right to be heard. That's something that even is reflected in what I do today. Is like for these guys to know that I'm here to help them or trying to they got to know that I'll drop anything. I mean, my first couple years was spent on the road, like, getting to know these guys. And so you've got to have those relationships, so that they know, like you're doing everything you can for them. And so that, that way, whenever you tell them something, they trust that it's real, you know, it's like, "Hey, if I tell you, these are the varieties I would plant," it's like, "Hey, I'm out there busting it trying to find the best one for you. And, like, based on my experience, these are the three I would look at, you know, on your place," or whatever it is. And you've got to have those type relationships, because if you don't, then they're like, "Oh, this guy. Like, who? Yeah, who cares? You know, he's in and out of here, and we don't ever hear from him or see him, or nothing." So you gotta show hey, I'm willing to get on the ground and get dirty with you and like we're gonna figure this out. You know, we're gonna solve this issue that you have on your place.

Emily Cabrera: 18:26

It's not all on their shoulders.

Camp Hand: 18:28

That's right? And we're gonna make sure that from here on, you've got a plan on what exactly we're gonna do to make sure that we don't have this problem again.

Emily Cabrera: 18:35

That's gotta bring such a sense of comfort and relief to know that there's someone who cares.

Camp Hand: 18:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jordan Powers: 18:43

And cares about all of it.

Camp Hand: 18:44

Well, and that's the other thing about the Cotton Team, right? Is we, like, get together and it's like, you know, you can tell that everybody cares. Everybody wants these guys to be successful. I mean, talk about rural stress and mental health and stuff like that. Cotton ain't selling, but for like, 68 cents a pound right now, and that is way below the cost of production. And so, we want for these guys to stay in business, and we're doing everything we can, I feel like, to try to put them in that position to be successful, you know? But it's sometimes the world market just throws a wrench in the whole thing.

Jordan Powers: 19:15

Exactly.

Emily Cabrera: 19:16

And, I know you guys are gearing up for harvest in next month or so. So what does this year's crop look like?

Camp Hand: 19:22

Of course, you've got extremes. You've got stuff that looks really good, and you've got stuff that's not so hot. That's part of my job that is so difficult, is because I get these kind of questions, and I only get called out to the bad stuff. You know?

Emily and Jordan: 19:33

[laughter]

Camp Hand: 19:33

I don't ever get calls from agents or growers of like, "Man, I gotta show you this cotton, it's incredible." You know?

Jordan Powers: 19:37

[laughter]

Camp Hand: 19:38

Now the crop, the crop looks good, the crop looks really good right now. We did just have Tropical Storm Debby come through. Fortunately, in most parts of the state, it seemed like that was not quite as bad as most people thought it was going to be. Uh, we did get some spots in east Georgia that got over 10 inches of rain, and so there was water standing for a while. But fortunately, it's getting drier out there. It's kind of moved off those fields. And of course, it's blazing hot out there today, right? So that's that's helping us, but it's too hot too get out there and do any field work. But, we're kind of monitoring that situation. We had a little bit of fruit shed and stuff like that, but nothing, nothing crazy. And so, you know, overall, I'd say the crop looks good. We still got a long way to go on it, though. It's just now, you know, middle of August. And we'll, we'll get started in September, I'm sure. And it'll go on through Thanksgiving and into December. In some cases, it starts in September with some of our earliest planted. And that's another thing that's so cool about Georgia compared to other places. Most other places in the Cotton Belt plant their cotton in about 10 days. Late April, first part of May is whenever most places are putting cotton in the ground. But in Georgia, we could plant from April 1st to June 10th.

Emily Cabrera: 20:46

Really?

Jordan Powers: 20:47

Wow.

Camp Hand: 20:47

And I mean, that kind of disperses some of your economic risks too, right? If you have a cotton picker, you're using it for longer than a lot of these other guys across the belt. Or these 12 row planters or whatever, labor, right? You can disperse that over a longer.

Emily Cabrera: 21:02

Disperse your risk.

Camp Hand: 21:03

Yeah, disperse your risk. And it helps with risk in terms of planting dates and like these kind of storms that come through. You know, we have a lot of unique challenges, but we have a lot of unique opportunities too, to kind of disperse that risk. But the April planted stuff will start getting ready here in about September, and then we'll go until October defoliating, and even up until first frost defoliating some of that late stuff. And then we'll just pick until we're done (laughter).

Unknown: 21:29

You pack that calendar year for sure (laughter), from January to December.

Camp Hand: 21:33

No doubt.

Jordan Powers: 21:34

There's something happening in cotton. Well we touched on it a little bit earlier, but we are sitting here in the studio for Talkin' Cotton.

Camp Hand: 21:39

We are.

Jordan Powers: 21:39

Your podcast. Tell us a little bit more about the show and tell our listeners how they might be able to find it if they want to dive deeper.

Camp Hand: 21:45

This is the UGA Tifton Campus podcast room. Talkin' Cotton is recorded here, and also All About the Pod with the Peanut Team. This is the first year that we've done it. It's been fun. It presents some unique opportunities for us, I think. It should be available on Apple and Spotify, and I think I've got it on Amazon. There's also a link on the Cotton Team website, which is ugacotton.comcotton.com.

Jordan Powers: 22:08

We'll be sure to link that in the show notes, just to get listeners directly there.

Camp Hand: 22:11

Awesome, awesome.

Jordan Powers: 22:12

From our podcast to yours.

Camp Hand: 22:13

That's right.

Jordan Powers: 22:14

Helping get the listeners out there and learning more. Well, Camp, thank you for having us down. Like we said earlier, we love coming down to Tifton. It's always a good time. Always exciting to talk cotton. It's something that coming from the Midwest is a whole new crop for me to look out a car window and see as we're driving across the state. But, so fascinating. So thank you for giving us a little glimpse into the cotton life here at UGA.

Camp Hand: 22:34

Oh yeah. Y'all come back and we'll eat lunch next time.

Jordan Powers: 22:36

Love it,[laughter] sounds good.

Sound Effect: 22:38

[music]

Jordan Powers: 22:39

Thanks for listening to Cultivating Curiosity, a podcast produced by the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. A special thanks to Mason McClintock for our music and sound effects. Find more episodes wherever you get your podcasts.