Episode 2804

- [Narrator] These new pickers can accomplish multiple tasks in a single pass. Tammy Algood learns how technology has made remarkable improvements in the cotton industry. Sheri Gramer gets a glimpse of life just after the Civil War in this heirloom orchard at historic Carter House in Franklin. Native azaleas have blooms from red and pink, orange and yellow, and white, with all shades in between. Troy Marden shares some of his favorites. Stay tuned. First, greater efficiency has lead to dramatic reductions in soil loss, water use, and insecticides.

- We're surrounded by it in our homes, in our wardrobes, even in our cars. Today, we're surrounded by it in the field. We're talking about cotton, the world's most wonderful and widely used natural fiber. We're here today with Jason Luckey with Rege Luckey and Sons, and Jason, tell me about this. You've got a lot of cotton. How many acres have we got here?

- Well, this field is about 30 acres, but I grow about 1,700 acres of cotton a year.

- And not just cotton. You grow other things as well.

- Yeah, I farm in partnership with my brother and my, my brother Ken and my nephew Zac Luckey. But we have corn, soybeans, winter wheat, and then also our beef cattle operation as well.

- [Tammy] You're not busy.

- [Jason] No, not at all.

- [Tammy] But cotton is your baby.

- [Jason] Yeah, I love cotton. I've been partial to cotton. When I was little, you wanted to be in the cotton field, and Daddy was partial to cotton, and I went to the cotton field and I played in the cotton, and back in the days, when we dumped it in the trailer, and so cotton's just been ingrained in me since the first days on the farm.

- [Tammy] I've grew up with cotton as well, but I've realized that a lot of people didn't. So when we say a cotton boll, explain to us what a cotton boll is.

- Cotton starts as a bloom, you know, so you hope you're bloomin' by the Fourth of July, and it'll put out that pretty white flower, which will turn pink and then fall off, and then when it falls off, you're left with the small boll, and of course the boll will grow bigger, and here are a couple we found over on the edge. After Mother Nature finishes her process, we'll put some boll opener, which is just simply, it's ethephon, which is simply the hormone of a plant. We give it a little dose when the top bolls get mature.

- [Tammy] Basically, you're just tricking the plant. It's thinking it's time to open up--

- [Jason] That's right.

- [Tammy] And let loose of the seeds.

- [Jason] Yep.

- In harvesting this, obviously this is what we're looking for. So you start harvesting at what time of the year every year?

- October the first, you're gonna start harvesting cotton. Plant it May the first, little bit in April if the weather's just perfect. April's that bonus. But plant May the first, harvest October the first.

- And you go through when?

- Weather permitting, good Octobers, we've finished up Halloween. But usually, you want to be finished by Thanksgiving.

- Got it. So your Thanksgiving gift is clean fields of harvested cotton.

- That's right.

- [Tammy] Tell me what variety of cotton that you grow.

- [Jason] I like the Deltapine brand cotton seed.

- [Tammy] So technically, cotton is a perennial, but you grow it as an annual.

- [Jason] Yeah.

- [Tammy] Because, for disease control, and just control of your field?

- Right, right. And up here, the northern side of the Cotton Belt, even though it's a perennial, the frost, and we're so cold, the frost will kill it, and so we have to come back with another planting next year. Several years ago, the biggest pest of cotton, cotton is such a beautiful plant, every bug likes to eat it, so it's a lot of management, but the biggest was the boll weevil. And I mean, obviously, got his name, and that's all he wanted was cotton, and that's, he was the boll weevil, and the only host plant was cotton. And once we discovered that, well, then we started the boll weevil eradication program, and we just concentrated, it was initiated through the government and the farmer program, together, joint program, and once you signed up, every field was sprayed by an agency, and took the farmer's hands out of it, and they sprayed it on a weekly basis, and we got the boll weevil eradicated and we pushed him back to Mexico. So in keeping with the boll weevil eradication, if you want to grow ornamental cotton, you need to go to your local extension office and report that you're gonna have cotton. If there's any issues with boll weevils, then they can bring a boll weevil trap and pheromone or whatever to make sure that, especially close to cotton-growing regions, being mindful and respectful of the work cotton growers have done to eradicate the boll weevil in our region.

- Right, so just your county local extension office, just let them know that you're thinking about this or going to do it, and then they will guide you through the steps with that.

- That's right.

- [Tammy] What are your challenges for growing this plant in Tennessee?

- Well, of course this year, the weather has been a challenge this fall. It's pick a couple of days and then rain for four days, and then you gotta kind of let it fluff back out. But on the northern side of Cotton Belt, you're always fighting cooler temperatures, getting it planted and getting it up and growing. You want to get it planted as early as you can, and so sometimes the soils are still cool. And then, through the growing season, several bugs really enjoy the cotton plant, the fruits, before the bloom is what we call a square, and several insects like to pierce the square and suck the square, and once that is pierced, then it throws the square off, and once that bloom is lost, then that's lost, so you have to manage your fields for insect pressure. Modern technology, we've began to isolate some diseases, began to figure out some varieties specific to diseases, and beginning to use fungicides a little more in the production of cotton. Especially where you have, but again there, being on the northern end of the Cotton Belt, and the winters we have kind of helps us keep some disease pressure pressed. Here in West Tennessee, a lot of cotton farmers practice heavy rotation, which also helps in disease and insects. Us having a grain cotton, this is the first rolling hill farm here. This is the first year we've had this in cotton in several years, but we like to rotate on that deal, just from diseases for corn, beans, cotton, not going one crop behind the other, keeping those crops moved around helps on your disease and also helps pests because as you have a field this winter laid with cotton stalks, or obviously the pests that are specific to corn, beans, or cotton will kind of overwinter in that trash, and if you plant, you know, the same crop back in, well, then they don't have to go far to look.

- That's right, they're already there.

- They're already there.

- [Tammy] So just like the cotton gin revolutionized cotton growing and production, this is yet another step in making it a little more efficient process.

- [Jason] That's right, that's right. These newer pickers came in around 2008, 2009, and these pickers revolutionized cotton to simplify labor, to simplify the picking process. Used to, it was time consuming to dump. You dump on the go or while you're picking, and it has allowed farmers to increase the acres they can get through one machine, because once you start picking in a day, you can basically just keep right on picking all day, don't have to stop and dump, just stop and take a lunch break, and stop and refuel, and you're off again. It's got a baling chamber. Much like a hay baler, it'll bale the cotton in these round rolls. When it gets to the programmed size that you want it to make, then it puts the plastic around it, which protects it from the environment, and as you can see, we've stacked four of 'em together, and that's getting 'em ready to go to the gin.

- And tell me, what does this weigh?

- [Jason] Each one weighs about 5,000 pounds of seed cotton, 'cause when they get the trash and the seed extracted, each one will gin out about four to four and a quarter 500-pound bales of lint cotton.

- [Tammy] Wow.

- [Jason] As the machine's going down the row, the row will go right through here, in these headers and stalk lifters, and that press sheet will keep the plants pressed up against those spindles, and on those spindles are little sharp burrs. The spindles go around, pick the cotton. The little burr grabs it, kind of wraps it around, comes around to the doffer, and the doffer, those little knobs grab it, throw it into the air duct, air duct blows it into the basket.

- I'm assuming I'm following you up this.

- Yes, it'd be better to go like I'm gonna go. We're gonna take off and drive down the rows and let the machine do what it does best, and that's to pick the cotton and wrap it up in the bales and set it out.

- [Tammy] Perfect. Okay, let's pick cotton.

- [Jason] Let's do it.

- [Tammy] So Jason, tell us your goals for your harvest.

- Cotton crop, you're shooting for, you know, yield, and then once it's ginned, each sample from a bale is taken and sent to the classing office. There's one in Memphis and there's four or five throughout the Cotton Belt. Unlike corn or soybeans, cotton has grade issues. When they send the grades to the classing office, it's all computer. It's taking that small, one little microscopic fiber, and they measure the length of the fiber, the length, the strength, and the micronaire is actually the circumference of that one little fiber. The other is the whiteness of it. Obviously, the color grade, and 21s and 31s are the whiter cotton. With the rain and the, and it's not as white as it should be. When you start in, the good early fall cotton and it's been, hadn't a lot of rain on it, and it's really good and white, well, you can see there, it's got some tinge to it. It's got some tinge.

- [Tammy] Just a little bit.

- [Jason] Yep, and so when you put that, you can kind of see the tinge there, and that's just from rain and--

- [Tammy] Weather.

- [Jason] The weather we've had. Grades have been challenging this year, but that's just a reflection of Mother Nature. As you start looking at the process to keep the mills spinning and to keep the dyes and everything working, you shoot for that good graded cotton, and you know, as I'm picking out varieties of seed in the springtime, I look for high yielders, and sometimes you may give up a yield to pick a little grade, because the grade will offset some of the yield differential.

- [Tammy] Do you have people that want to stop and actually just kind of--

- Oh yeah.

- Pick a little bit all the time?

- I have some fields on 45 Highway, and when I'm pickling, a lot of times, of course, it happened several times when I was picking. I can only imagine what happens on a daily basis, but I see people in it all the time. In fact, I had a fella call the other day about, his wife wanted to come, "We want to do our wedding pictures in your cotton field." I said, "Sure, have at it," so yeah.

- It does have a connection that you don't even realize sometimes, so thank you for being a wise steward--

- I'm glad to do it.

- Of the land, and for taking care of a historically Southern crop that is quite beautiful.

- [Jason] Yes ma'am, thank you.

- [Tammy] Can you even imagine life without cotton for you?

- [Jason] No, I can't. Like, you know, I don't know what I would do. I'd be a hockey player. I'd try out for the Predators.

- And I'm gonna play for the NBA.

- All right!

- We're in my neck of the woods today. We're visiting the historic Carter House, right off of Columbia Ave in Downtown Franklin. It's always been a treasure, but even more so now because they are recreating the historic orchards. There are 69 trees here in the orchard, and visiting with us today is Justin Stelter. And Justin, tell me what hat you wear.

- My official title is, I'm Director of Gardens and Grounds for the Battle of Franklin Trust.

- [Sheri] Okay, and tell me about the tree behind me.

- [Justin] So this is an interesting apple tree. What we know about this tree is, the name is Kinnaird's Choice. Mr. Kinnaird owned a farm on Carter's Creek Pike, approximately five miles from this location. This tree was produced in the mid-1850s. Moscow Carter, when he's developing his orchard in the 1869, 1870 period, buys Kinnaird's Choice or Kinnaird's Choice apple trees and plants them in his orchard. Fact, it's the first row.

- [Sheri] And that's what you've recreated here, as well.

- [Justin] Yes, ma'am.

- Tell me about the selection of the trees.

- Sure, so we have a journal entry from Moscow Carter in late 1869. In fact, he transcribes it into the next year, into early 1870. And he has a list of approximately 13 rows of fruit trees that he plants, compromising somewhere around 400 trees in total, and so in recreating this orchard, we have put the trees in the same order that he notes in his diary.

- [Sheri] Tell me about the tree we're standing by now.

- [Justin] Well, this tree has a unique story to us. This is the Ben Davis. We searched all the nurseries we could find in the United States, looking for this tree to no avail. About 2014, a good friend of mine, Robert Hicks, was being interviewed by Martha Teichner of "CBS Sunday Morning" for a story, and she asked me what I was doing here at the Carter House, what new project I was working on. And I told her that we were recreating this orchard that we know that Moscow Carter planted, and we were having trouble finding one of the apple trees. And she said, "Well, email me the name of the apple tree "and I'll find it for you." And I kind of found that to be a little farfetched. Regardless, I sent her the name, and the name was Bradford's Best. That's what we were looking for. And so she contacted a good friend of hers in England who is part, if not heads up, the National Orchard for England. And he was able to do some research and found, discovered that Bradford's Best actually had a name change and it became the Ben Davis. And once we fit, made that connection, once he made that connection for us, then Ron Novak and the Williamson County Master Gardeners got heavily involved, and they were able to track down a Ben Davis here in the United States. Came out of a nursery in Missouri. That's a long way to tell you that some of these trees are hard to find.

- [Sheri] Let's talk a little bit about the care and the needs of this, and perhaps how you're, you know, what you spray 'em with.

- [Justin] That's a very good question because these are heirloom trees or old trees. They're 19th century trees that were planted about eight years ago. But what that means is, some of them don't have the updated disease resistance, some of the hybridization that happens over time, some of the technological advances. So it was a great notion to plant these trees, but the maintenance is much more strict. So this is, again, where the partnership with the Williamson County Master Gardeners comes into play. Ron Novak heads up the spray regiment for these trees.

- We're standing here by one of the trees that dates back to the 1600s. It even has some little apples on it, and it's called a Lady. Now, Lady apple is really unique because as other trees kind of grow out sideways, this one kind of goes up like a vase. And these apples are very pretty. They have yellow bottoms and red tops with little stripes, and what they did with these Ladies was take these and decorate Christmas trees with them. Put little strings through 'em, decorate the Christmas trees, and hung 'em around the house, because what's more Christmas than green and red?

- [Sheri] Right, right.

- And they're really good tasting trees, good tasting apples. They grow fast. This tree is probably no more than three, four years old, let's say. And it, it goes way back to the French. The French thought this was a royal tree. They thought royalty had to have these trees. And even some say it could have gone back to the Roman period. We don't know that. It's a fantastic tree, it has multiple uses, and the apples taste pretty darn good too. All these trees can't be found in one place. We had to do some research on it, and where do they come from? I've got from California, North Carolina, some here in Tennessee, Virginia, and Missouri.

- [Sheri] The tree we're standing in front of, I believe you had mentioned that our viewers could possibly find this one.

- Yeah, this is a Winesap, called Westfield Winesap, and this tree is, even though it dates back to 1804, this tree is the mother tree for a lot of other type Winesaps. You can buy Winesaps in some of the orchards that you have here, and it may not be the same exact tree that we have here, but it's gonna be associated with that species of tree, and the Winesap is a very productive tree. It grows fast, as you can see. This tree is probably, oh, it's about maybe nine years old now. And what's interesting, we get to see people coming through the orchard, and they want to have the experience of, okay, they hear about the battle, but then what are all these trees doing here?

- [Sheri] What was life like?

- [Ron] What was life like after the war, when they were trying to reconstruct their lives? And it was very difficult. So if, and if anybody comes though the orchard and they want to talk, I'd talk to 'em about where we've sourced the trees, how hard it is to grow these trees, because these are heirloom trees. They're very susceptible to disease. But with the help of the Master Gardener Association and the extension service here in Franklin, we're able to try to ward off some of those diseases and insects, and that's what master gardening is all about. What we're all about is horticulture education through volunteerism. That's our mission.

- [Sheri] And how many master gardeners are involved in the orchard with you?

- At the orchard here, there's probably about 15 to 20 which I call regulars, but then we have trainees. There's trainee classes every year, and so we get new people in, and that's so much fun because you know what we have here? This is hallowed ground.

- Right.

- This is the battle where 10,000 people either were killed or wounded, and as master gardeners, if you like history like I do, and you like horticulture, you've got two birds with one stone. So I love it. And I'm hoping that other people that visit here love it as much as I do.

- Well, thank you, Ron. It's been a pleasure. And I hope our viewers will come visit the Carter House and the orchards.

- Come any time, appreciate it. Thank you much.

- Thank you.

- Well, I've come out to GroWild today, native plant nursery here, just outside of Nashville, in Fairview, Tennessee, and I am with Mike Berkley who is one of the owners, and we're gonna talk just a little bit about this beautiful group of plants. I think Southerners know mostly the evergreen group of azaleas.

- That's right, and--

- And those are not native plants to our area.

- No, they're not, and of course, in our native, you know, you said evergreen, and of course the native azaleas are not evergreen, they're gonna be deciduous. Many times, they're larger, and a lot of 'em, most of 'em are very fragrant.

- Fragrant.

- Which you're not gonna find on the evergreen exotic.

- [Troy] They obviously come in a wide variety of colors and forms.

- [Mike] Ironically, one of our most popular native azaleas are the ones that occur outside of the state of Tennessee, down in Florida and the southern part of Georgia and Alabama, and it's called the Florida Flame azalea, and this is a great representation of that. This is one of the few Flame azaleas that actually has fragrance. And then many of the others, especially the pastels, you've got some hybrids in here, and that's one of the things about the native azaleas that's been really fun is that they're very promiscuous and they will crawl, so you get these delightful hybrids in many colors. Some with fragrance, some not. But you know, when you cross a flame azalea with a white or pink azalea, you get all kinds of colors. It looks like a jar of jellybeans.

- Right, and I think that's a, you know, a case in point would be something like this plant, which is either a color selection of a specific species, or the hybrids also often look, you know, like this, where you've got this kind of bicolored form. You know, pink with yellow, or whatever. So you get into these really fascinating colors.

- [Mike] Exactly, and this is a new introduction I'm really excited about. This is, it came out of Superior Trees out of, a nursery out of Panhandle, Florida. And this is named Emily, and it is a flammeum. It's actually Rhododendron flammeum, and so that makes it a true Flame azalea. Now, the true Flame azaleas, what we call the flammeums, are not fragrant, but this has been crossed with some of those that have got the fragrance. But what the flammeum is known for compared to a lot of the other native azaleas is the very large trusses, the balls of blooms. But the native azaleas, there's many of them that occur around the Central Basin, up on the higher elevations around the Central Basin in the middle of Tennessee, so that gives 'em the heat tolerance. I've also noticed, as far as pH adaptation and then the, you know, how much they can handle the drought, beat the evergreen rhododendron all to pieces. So I will take a native azalea, and then also the fragrance. You're not gonna get the fragrance off of the evergreen rhododendron.

- Out of the rhododendron, sure.

- [Mike] This is what we actually grow our native azaleas in, and it's got peanut hulls with pine bark in it, very fine, and that's great for a container that you've got, you know, above ground as you're growing. But this is what we like to actually plant in, and this is called mini nuggets, and you can see why it's called that because there's actually pieces of the bark that's got some size. Well, what this does when you put this in with your native soil, with some compost, you actually have air pockets in between the coarse texture of these mini nuggets. Once you get 'em up above ground, which they need to get up out of that--

- [Troy] For good drainage.

- [Mike] Good drainage. You've got to also watch that evenly moist scenario. And evenly moist doesn't mean wet. They will not tolerate wet feet. But that compost moisture, right, that I like to call it. It's like if you put your hand in the compost and squeeze it, you could still feel the moisture, but you can't wring out the water. And so that's what we try to, so compost is good. You know, a small percent of compost mixed in with it.

- So when you say plant high, that means leave maybe a third to even half--

- A third--

- Of the root ball?

- We have gone completely out of the ground with these, and bermed, put 'em in berms.

- But you still berm up around them--

- Berm up around it.

- And you completely cover the root ball.

- Exactly.

- So I think that's an important point to make.

- That's true.

- Because if you leave that root ball exposed, then you're gonna wick water out of the ground, and the plant will dry out and die pretty quickly.

- Right, right. And it's always a bonus, also, if the homeowner has the commercial irrigation system, because that keeps that evenly moist. And you know, one thing that I've noticed, that the whole, all rhododendron will not tolerate is that rollercoaster ride in moisture, and it goes from dry to wet, to wet to dry, and to keep that evenly moist, that helps to have a programmed, timed irrigation system. And then keep the pH down, and that's easy to do with, there's so many fertilizers that are acidifiers and keep that pH down, which are are of course, in Middle Tennessee, we have the higher pH. And that's what the pine bark will do. Feeding it with a Holly-tone or Ironite. We recommend that to keep that pH down.

- [Troy] A more acidic type fertilizer. What about this bright orange? Is this a flammeum also?

- This is a flammeum. Yeah, this is a, called a Red Devil. And what it's known for is to, comes out with a bud that is really crimson red, then opens up to that large flower, a crimson orange flower. And then we also have on the flammeums, that's one of the ones that I'm actually more excited about because they bloom typically a little later, and that's the other thing about these azaleas is that you can have, according to which species and variety you use, some of these will bloom right on into the summer, into the end of July or first of August.

- [Troy] I think that's a good point to make. We've done some shoots over the years down at Callaway Gardens, and they were actually founded around a native azalea, the Plum Leaf azalea, which down there in Central West Georgia, flowers in late July and sometimes even into early August.

- In the heat of Central Georgia, and that's what's really amazing about that plant, and what you'll notice about the Plum Leaf azalea is that it'll flush out all kinds of growth. You won't even see flower buds on it this early in the spring, and then on through the summer, it starts getting larger. The buds get larger, and the next thing you know, this bright red flower in July, going into August. And then, what they've also done, especially with breeding work in Callaway, is that they've crossed those with some of the fragrant, like the sweet azalea, and so you can get these other colors that bloom late with fragrance, so great.

- Well, Mike, I think one important point to make is that these native azaleas can get some size on them. They're not necessarily just your cute little foundation plants. So tell me about this one that's behind us.

- Well, this is a Piedmont azalea, and this particular variety is called the Varnadoe's Phlox Pink, which has, a few weeks ago, actually, it was a vivid pink with fragrance. And the point about it is that they can be small trees, and what's really nice about that is that the bark, and in many cases, you'll see a slight exfoliation to the bark, which is really pretty for winter interest. And because this is a deciduous small tree, large shrub, you get the fall color on it, as well.

- [Troy] So just an important point to make, again, a lot of times, and this is not just with azaleas, but with anything that you're adding to your landscape, it's awfully cute in that little three-gallon pot when it comes home, or a five-gallon or a seven-gallon, but it does have an ultimate size, and it's important to remember what that ultimate size is and how you use it in the landscape.

- That's exactly right. You know, we were pretty much born and raised with the exotic Asian species of azaleas, and we looked at those as the large evergreens, and they stay kind of--

- Compact.

- Compact.

- You can share them.

- Yeah, exactly. And the native azaleas are not like that. And so, especially if you've got a large wall like we have here, you can cover that wall with this azalea.

- [Troy] Well, thanks so much for letting us come out, telling us a little bit about one of our most beautiful native shrubs. We appreciate it and hope we'll see you again soon.

- [Mike] I'm glad you came, Troy.

- [Narrator] For inspiring garden tours, growing tips, and garden projects, visit our website at VolunteerGardener.org, or on YouTube at the Volunteer Gardener channel, and like us on Facebook.