THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 1, 1995 TAG: 9509300106
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY MARY REID BARROW, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 159 lines
THE BRIGHT GREEN cotton picker, a mammoth machine filled to overflowing with tufts of white cotton, lumbered down the Knotts Island road from the field to a parking area where a baler awaited the fluffy harvest.
As the picker neared the parking area, residents began to gather 'round. Like magic, a truck pulled up out of nowhere and then another. Vehicles slowly converged, drawing in on all sides.
It was show time on Knotts Island.
Folks were lining up to watch the first cotton harvest here and in Virginia Beach in more than 50 years. The first bale had been completed a day earlier, and it remained in the corner of the field, covered with a giant tarp.
Standing in front of it, Virginia Beach farmer Bonney Bright was holding court with neighbors and friends who had arrived to watch. Dressed in the farmer's uniform - navy blue coveralls and a John Deere hat - Bright looked as pleased as if he were the king of cotton himself.
``I could sell tickets and probably make more money than harvesting cotton,'' Bright said, chuckling.
``First cotton I've ever seen on Knotts Island,'' said resident Buster Brumley standing by for the show.
Earlier, a man driving a pickup had been so fascinated with the sight that he drove his truck into a pine tree, Bright said. ``I think we might be a traffic hazard!''
It's no wonder. Most Knotts Island and Virginia Beach residents never have seen a cotton harvest. If they have, they are seeing a far different process today than the one they remember as a child.
Bright is growing 250 acres of cotton this year, half on Knotts Island and half in Virginia Beach.
With his fist, Bright thumped the tightly packed bale that was as high and long as the back of a tractor trailer. ``This bale here,'' Bright said, ``probably all of Knotts Island didn't grow a bale that big way back.''
Harold Capps, who lives at the south end of Knotts Island, is one of the few who still recalls the cotton crops that once blanketed the local landscape.
His family grew cotton for the first and last time just before World War II. In those days, there were no harvesters. Cotton was picked by hand and hauled by mules, he said.
``We got 6 cents a pound for it and we had to pay 3 cents to have it picked!'' Capps said. ``It just wasn't worth it.''
Today, cotton is sprayed by a chemical that both defoliates the plant to keep the leaves out of the picker and also causes the bolls of cotton to open concurrently, making for a uniform harvest time. Way back, cotton picking went on for a long time, Capps recalled.
``We stayed in the cotton field most of the summer,'' he said.
That was just before cotton growing died out in Virginia Beach. In 1939, only 35 acres of cotton were under cultivation. Ten years before, a whopping 2,188 acres were grown.
Cotton production fell off in that decade mainly because of the boll weevil, explained Louis Cullipher, director of the city's Department of Agriculture. The boll weevil, a beetle pest, lays eggs in the cotton buds and then the emerging larvae damage the cotton bolls.
Bolls are the cotton seed pods that burst open to reveal the tufts of cotton that you can see dotting Bright's fields in old Princess Anne County today. The introduction of polyester also affected the demand for cotton, Cullipher added.
Today the boll weevil is under control, cotton fabric is making a comeback and farmers are getting back on the bandwagon.
About 10 years ago farmers in peanut country to the west of Virginia Beach started experimenting with cotton again. In the past five years, cotton has begun to rival corn as a crop for peanut rotation, Cullipher said.
``Now, we're surrounded by cotton,'' he added.
Cotton was slow to come here because corn grows better in Virginia Beach's wet soil than it does in the drier soil farther west. Even in Virginia Beach, however, corn is not a money maker these days and cotton is, tempting local farmers like Bright to rethink their crops, Cullipher said.
Bright, who raises his share of corn, chose some sandy acreage in Knotts Island and Virginia Beach where corn hasn't grown well in the past.
``We are trying to find something that will take the place of corn,'' Bright explained. ``Cotton, they say, likes sand. The other reason is that cotton is selling good.''
Although Bright is the only farmer growing cotton in Virginia Beach and Knotts Island, he is not the only one down this way. Two Chesapeake farmers took the plunge this year and so did two other Virginia Beach residents - Billy Sawyer, who farms in North Carolina, and Curtis Wolfarth, who is growing his cotton in Chesapeake.
Bright teamed with two of the growers. Although they are not business partners, the three agreed to stagger their cotton planting times, so they would have the combined 750 acres that makes it worthwhile for the Suffolk Cotton Gin to bring the equipment for harvesting and then to gin it. A first-time cotton farmer is advised to plant not much more than 250 acres, Bright explained.
``You've got to plant some and learn,'' he said.
Unlike other harvesting equipment, cotton pickers and balers are specialized for that crop alone. A picker costs $200,000 to $250,000, an investment unaffordable to a neophyte cotton grower.
The huge cotton picker with its big rotating fingers, rumbles through the cotton field whooshing up three acres of cotton before its bin is full. That's roughly 400 to 500 pounds of cotton, about the size of an old-fashioned bale, Bright said.
The picker's load is dumped into the baler, a bright red bin called a ``modular builder,'' which resembles the body of a tractor trailer truck. When full, it holds a dozen or more 500-pound regular bales of cotton. Hydraulic cylinders, thumping out 2,000 pounds of pressure, move across the top of the builder compressing the cotton into one huge bale.
``It's harder than a mattress,'' Bright said.
And it doesn't fit the traditional description of a bale. The cotton is packed so tight today that it doesn't have to be secured with wire or rope. Later the bales are picked up by another huge truck and carried off to the cotton gin, where the cotton and its seeds are separated.
``Half the weight from a bale is cotton seed,'' Bright said.
The seed goes into cottonseed meal, oil and other products. Some of it also will come back to Bright for the cotton he plans to plant next year, despite this year's crop falling short of expectations.
``It's been so doggone dry,'' Bright explained. ``The cotton all over Virginia is off 40 percent.''
His cotton is 18 to 20 inches tall, and it should be 36 inches, he said. He was hoping for 1,000 pounds of cotton per acre and he's averaging 500 to 600 pounds.
Two weeks ago, cotton was paying 91 cents a pound. For Bright, that adds up to $450 to $550 an acre, which makes it a break-even proposition this year, he said. On the other hand, he figured he would have lost money raising corn on that same acreage.
Bright is no newcomer to the risks of farming. He's been working the old Princess Anne County soil for 35 years now. His mother, Essie Bright, is one of those who remembers picking cotton as a youngster in Virginia Beach.
Bright is one of the top watermelon growers in the state and during the season you can find his watermelons in Farm Fresh and Be-Lo Food stores. He also grows string beans for major canneries in addition to raising wheat, soybeans and corn.
Next week he should be finishing the harvest as the big picker and baler work his Virginia Beach fields off Pungo Ferry and Buzzard Neck roads. But the time to savor the pleasure of his first cotton harvest is shortlived.
``Next week we'll also be back here,'' he said, ``disking up this field and planting wheat.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos, including color cover, by D. KEVIN ELLIOTT
The huge cotton picker with its big rotating fingers, rumbles
through the cotton field whooshing up three acres of cotton before
its bin is full.
Bonney Bright, who also raises his share of corn, chose some sandy
acreage in Knotts Island and Virginia Beach to try cotton where corn
hasn't grown well in the past.
``I could sell tickets and probably make more money than harvesting
cotton,'' Bonney Bright says of the curious spectators who showed up
to watch his cotton puffs picked.
J.C. Harrell of Suffolk drives the $200,000 cotton picker used to
harvest Bonney Bright's Knotts Island farm. After the cotton is
harvested, it is dumped into a ``modular builder'' that packs the
cotton into 500-pound bales. Bright teamed with two other growers to
bring in the expensive equipment.
by CNB