Them Ol’ Cottonfields Back Home

I seem to have a knack for looking out the plane window whenever I fly over the Mississippi River. It draws me like a magnet heralding me home, my personal Mason-Dixon line. From the air the land looks like a patchwork quilt of earth tones and textures — deep browns and crisp greens in perfect squares as far as the eye can see. On the drive through the Delta, its rows and rows of crops flanking the highway and rushing by like an animation flip book. And when you finally slow down and stop, it’s a bunch of plants in the rich soil with a man in the middle…in his truck…on his phone. 

My brother-in-law, Tap Parker, farms 15,000 acres of cotton, corn, and soybeans on two separate operations in the Delta, one on a bend in the Mississippi River in Lake Providence, Louisiana, and the other thirty miles northwest near Parkdale, Arkansas. His truck is his mobile office, his daily commute being an hour-and-a-half drive from his wife and home. He loves what he does, so the drive time is hardly a bother. His job is dictated by weather: rain, sun, and wind shape his year which typically goes like this:

• Early March: Plant corn as it needs low temperatures to pollinate

• Late March-early May: Plant        soybeans

• Late April-early May: Plant        cotton

• August-September: Harvest        corn

• August-October: Harvest       beans (using same machine as       corn)

• September-October: Harvest        cotton 

The goal is to wrap up planting by the end of May, then maintain the crop until harvest by providing enough water and light and removing bugs and weeds. It may sound simple, but there’s a whole lot of know-how poured into those fields, knowledge learned by doing rather than in a classroom.

Lack of water is usually not an issue — Delta fields receive on average 56” of rainfall annually and can be easily irrigated if need be — but flooding certainly is. The Mississippi has breached twice in the last 100 years, once, notably, in 1927 which flooded the entire Delta and ruined tens of thousands of acres in the blink of an eye, and again in 2011, when a former mainland levee breached right by Tap’s farm, submerging all his and his neighbors’ land. The river’s main trait is to meander, leaving oxbow lakes in its path and devastating man. Sunlight is plentiful, as are bugs and weeds. A crop consultant provides an Integrated Pest Management report weekly and assures that pesticides are applied when and where needed. Tap rotates his crops for both agronomic (varying soil content helps eliminate certain diseases and depletion of the soil) and economic (commodity price) reasons. He also manages and consults for AgVictus, a private equity firm in Atlanta, on their Delta properties in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri. He fell into this organically around 1998 when a farmer friend asked his advice, and the asking never stopped.

Tap was born to farm. His parents purchased 200 acres just before he was born and farmed it for 12 years until his father died suddenly. His mom then leased out the land to provide for the family. Tap dutifully studied Agricultural Business at Louisiana Tech then hurried home to begin farming those precious 200 acres. He now owns 2,000 acres and farms an additional 13,000 acres leased from neighboring landowners. He has served on the Cotton Board, is a delegate to the national Cotton Council, and was recently appointed chairman of the venerable Staplcotn, the largest cotton cooperative east of the Mississippi. In these respects, his career is not that different from many up here in the big city. Technology has attempted to throw him for a loop, as it has us all. Thankfully, his son speaks the new language and is now farming with him, having recently graduated with degrees in Ag Engineering and Agronomy. His mad skill as a drone pilot is a radical departure from driving through acres of fields to check on crops, and his videos and photos are as helpful as they are beautiful.

I recently spent a day on the farm during Corn Camp, a tradition started around 1990 during which a half-acre of 6,000 acres planted is pulled by hand by the South African crew while still in the “sweet corn” phase. (The rest is harvested by machine at “Dent” phase and sold as livestock feed.) They shuck it, bag it, then drop it in the kitchen where its “put up” for eating all year by family and friends. This is the fun part of the process. I bent my own ear to the words of wisdom floating around that farmhouse while we cleaned, cut off kernels, cooked, cooled, and canned about 5,000 ears. 

Here’s some of what I learned….

*Each corn stalk produces one ear. When it sprouts, a tassel pops out at the top of the stalk to do the pollinating. The silk at the top of the newly formed ear catches the pollen, then disperses it to each kernel through an individual strand. 

*While most soybeans are used to feed livestock (primarily poultry), many are used for human consumption in tofu, soy milk, edamame, and cooking oils, as well as in crayons, biodiesel, paints, building materials, cleaners, and lubricants.

*Growing cotton is an art. A farmer’s efforts can make a difference and are reflected in the final crop. “You can alter yield throughout the entire growing process through management and timely application of nutrients, insecticides, and growth regulators, a non-toxic material which causes the plant cells to focus on the boll rather than the green part of the plant.”

This summer, when you towel off after a dip in the pool, pull on a soft cotton T-shirt, then bite into a corncob hot off the grill, give a quick think on the effort that went into it. And a silent thank-you.