By Robert Medley
Managing Editor
While there may be a lot more wheat farming in Canadian County than cotton, farmer Keith Kouba has been able to call himself one of the county’s cotton men.
And his crop this year is looking as good as he has seen.
The demand and prices may be affected by the pandemic. But producing it hasn’t been hurt.
Kouba has over 600 acres of cotton that he doesn’t have to irrigate and has had little trouble with pests.
The green plants are on the way to blooming as the heat of August nears.
“It is really just now starting to kind of bloom. It’s early by the early part of September it can bloom. It’s in the beginning of blooming,” Kouba said.
He also farms soybean. Both crops have had good growing conditions this year.
“It looks really good right now, some cotton fields are better than others. He has had more weeds this year in his fields around Yukon.
“It rained a whole lot at first and then it just stops for a while.
It is about 60 cents a pound and has been staying in that area for the last couple of years.
It is time to sit back and watch it grow. But there are boll weevils to worry about, he said.
“There are ways to rid fields of the boll weevil with traps, and spraying is a last resort if an infestation threatens the crop.
“I’ve never had to spray for them,” Kouba said.
He said last year, there were only a handful of farmers who harvested cotton in Canadian County, Kouba said.
All areas of Canadian County have good land for cotton, he said.
“I like cotton so much because you can put cotton on old red dirt that won’t grow anything and it will grow as long as we get a little rain,” Kouba said.
