Over 130 Deltapine new product evaluators and their spouses recently gathered in San Antonio, Texas, for the 16th annual NPE Summit and announcement of the class of 2024 cotton varieties to be commercially released. NPE growers plant Deltapine’s experimental cotton varieties and report back with how each variety performed. The yield information and input from growers is used to select the varieties released each year.
“What it really boils down to is the value of real life on-farm conditions where our growers are managing the trials,” said Dave Albers, Deltapine cotton product development manager. “It’s real-life data and feedback from growers and consultants.”
Sean Bates from Altus, Oklahoma, is a second year NPE grower and attended his first NPE Summit this year.
“It gives individual cotton growers a look at new products that haven’t been put out there yet and kind of gives us a feel for what’s coming and what the potential could be on our farm,” Bates said. “Then we can all communicate together in an event like this and see what we liked what we didn’t like.”
Class of 2024
For 2024, Deltapine will be launching two new varieties containing the newest trait protection package: Bollgard 3 ThryvOn cotton with XtendFlex Technology. These varieties include a new nematode-resistant B3TXF cotton variety and a B3TXF variety that demonstrated outstanding performance in short season, high-yield environments.
“Of eight total variety candidates evaluated in 2023, two rose to the top,” said Eric Best, Deltapine cotton product manager. “These two new cotton varieties were approved for performance by the NPE growers and will make strong additions to the already high-performing Deltapine commercial variety lineup.”
The first variety released was DP 2436NR B3TXF, a mid-maturity cotton variety with resistance to root-knot nematodes and bacterial blight. This new product was only tested in west Texas and delivered outstanding fiber quality in NPE plots and has moderate tolerance to verticillium wilt. The best fit for its maturity will be central to southern Texas High Plains. Of the NPE growers who evaluated this product, 89% of them approved its performance and rated it as likely to purchase and plant.
“I think 2436 is a first step in the beginning of the kinds of products that bring more native traits with yield and quality that the growers are looking for,” Albers explained. “You can’t sacrifice yield—or quality, but particularly yield—to bring native traits and I think that’s really the challenge that we’re trying to meet as we want to maintain our yield standard. We’re not going to release something unless it meets this certain standard of beating our current products.”
The second variety released was DP 2414 B3TXF, an early-maturity cotton variety that responded well to high-yield environments in 2023 NPE plots. It has medium-tall to tall plant height with smooth leaf pubescence, is susceptible to bacterial blight and moderately susceptible to verticillium and fusarium. Management is similar to DP 2211 B3TXF and it has improved storm tolerance versus DP 2211 B3TXF. This variety fits the early-season regions of the Mid-South, Southeast and in irrigated fields in the northern High Plains of Texas. This variety had a 76% approval rating among NPE growers.
“The Class of ’24 continues our effort to bring to market new combinations of genetics and traits through the Deltapine NPE Program that offer improvements over current products in areas such as yield, fiber quality and native trait protections,” Best said. “Once again, we thank the NPE growers who planted, managed, evaluated and provided their feedback on these new cotton varieties so we have confidence in their performance potential in their respective growing markets.”
Although the 2024 class is small in comparison to previous years, Albers said this is due in part to the new varieties that are coming up in Deltapine’s breeding program and will be tested next year. He expects the class of 2025 to be larger and to include even more improved varieties.
“We’re moving into this this new area with these native traits and bringing them into our most advanced germplasm,” Albers said. “So, I think there’s a lot of upside there for next year and in the following years.”
To learn more about the NPE program and the new varieties, visit www.deltapine.com/NPE.
Lacey Vilhauer can be reached at 620-227-1871 or [email protected].
