In the first Crop Production Report since Hurricane Michael and the first good estimates since Hurricane Florence, the USDA has reduced the Southeast’s cotton production from 5.691 Million bales to 4.31 Million bales. That’s a total reduction of 1.381 Million bales from the September 1 report. Most estimates had over a million bale reduction but I’m not sure it was expected to drop that much.

All Southeastern states indicated significant reductions to crops from the September 1 to November 1. Alabama showed a reduction of 215,000 bales or 19.6%. Florida dropped from Continue reading →

Please see the below Memo from the National Cotton Council regarding losses from hurricanes Florence and Michael. The best way for your organizations to represent the loss is through real, actual data. Please forward the link below to your producers and encourage their participation.

DSF

During out state meetings recently, one of the topics that seemed to cause the most confusion was dealing with overtime and how to pay it. This article will attempt to refresh everyone’s memory on how that works for gins.

Cotton Gins are in a unique position of having two partial overtime exemptions that give ginners the option of paying overtime after 40 hours (normal) or over 48 hours (partial exemption). There are two code sections in the Fair Labor Standards act that discuss the partial overtime exemption for gins. Sections 13(h) and 13(i) are the code sections in the law that we refer to for overtime exemptions. Gins may use these exemptions for up to 14 weeks.

Section 13(h) is the rule dealing with jobs that are necessary and incidental to the ginning process. A list of those types off jobs are contained in the document linked at the bottom of this article. Think of these as the people that you hire that aren’t running machinery. You can Continue reading →

In the past several days, parts of our region have gotten a substantial amount of rain on wide open cotton. This is over and above what happened in the Carolinas with Florence. With temperatures where they are, damp cloudy weather  can lead to some instances (more rare than you may thing) where the ginner needs to take a bit more precaution when ginning.

Wet cotton can lead to wet seed. Wet seed can be tough to gin. Sprouted seed can be tough to gin. The best advice is to let the cotton dry thoroughly if possible. Soft seed will firm up enough to gin. Sprouted seed will drop the sprout a lot of the time and if it doesn’t, the gin and lint cleaners will get it out.

Sometimes producers need to go ahead an pick it before the next storm or front makes a bad situation worse. This is when you really need to communicate with your producers. Round modules can complicate things further.

Please read the paper below. It was developed several years ago and doesn’t take round modules into account but it has a lot of good information.

Recommendations Excess Moisture Prepared by WSAnthony

DSF

For a third attempt, the North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia State Unit meetings for the Southeastern Cotton Ginners Association, will be held this week. The first two attempts had to be postponed due to Hurricane Florence’s impact on the area. Many gins and ginners are in some of the hardest hit areas of the state. Even though some gins will be running we will hold our annual issues update and safety meetings this week.

The South Carolina State Unit meeting will be Thursday, September 27 at 10 AM at the the Tri-County Electric Coop in St. Matthews, SC. The North Carolina / Virginia State Unit meeting will be Friday, September 28 at 10 AM as well. Lunch will follow.

We hope to see all our ginners at one of these meetings.

DSF