Release the Turnrow Monster: Adam Chappell Moves to 76” Wide Row Cotton

Plant half the seed, yet maintain yield? Less is more for Adam Chappell: He’s all in on 76” rows and is “not going back.”

By Chris Bennett

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August 11, 2021 09:47 AM

Less is more for Adam Chappell. Plant under half as much seed, remove every other crop row, apply a reduced rate of fertilizer—yet maintain yield, smother weeds, and increase profit? Welcome to Chappell’s farm world, where cultivation means a 76” lane between plants on every row of every cotton acre across his operation.

With a standout reputation across the agriculture industry as a farmer obsessed with the dollar-and-cent economics of crop management, Chappell has taken three years of wide-row education and fine-tuned a system for maximum profit. “I’m now all in to 76” rows,” he says,” and I’m not going back to needlessly spending so much money.”

More Than Yield

Chappell is the fourth generation to farm family ground in northeast Arkansas’s Woodruff County, just outside Cotton Plant—80 miles west of the Mississippi River. On 8,000 acres, atop a sandy ridge pinched between the Cache River and Bayou DeView bottoms, Chappell and his brother, Seth, grow corn, cotton, rice, soybeans and a mix of small grains.

Highly dubious of conventional seeding rates for several crops, Chappell first began taking note of Australian success with skip rows, and began asking agronomic questions of several Australian farming friends. “They were going as wide as 90” and 120” with 15,000 or 20,000 seeds per acre—way, way out of the norm, but were seeing great crops. At first, all I was thinking about was reducing my seed costs.”

Chappell tried 76” cotton rows on limited acreage in 2018, and just four years later, the switch is permanent, with all 440 acres of his Woodruff County cotton in single 76” row spacing. “Just imagine rows of 38” cotton, and then take every other row away, just like you filled every row of the planter but forgot the in-betweens,” he describes.

However, his yields compared between 38” and 76” are in the exact same ballpark, with an average of 1,200-plus lb. per acre—excellent cotton in his immediate geography. “If you get 1,200 lb. around here on these soils, that’s really very good, because 3-bale cotton only happens every once in a while.”

Essentially, Chappell is harnessing the science behind the proverbial turnrow monster plant, raised with plenty of space and laden with 10-12 bolls on the bottom branch. More space, more photosynthesis, more fruit—as well as less water and seed. “Why are we cramming? Give it space and a cotton plant explodes,” he says, “but there’s a lot more going on than just yield.”

Overall Economics

Chappell’s initial stab at 76”-row cotton in 2018 was at 22,000 seeds per acre, but he felt the plants were too jammed, and dialed down the rate year-by-year. In 2021, he planted 76” cotton from May 10-15, at 15,000 seeds per acre, compared with his former rate of 30,000-40,000 seeds per acre (on 38” rows). “Each seed is now basically a foot apart, but I’d normally be at 6” apart on 38”.

Chappell’s 440 cotton acres are split into four fields: two irrigated by flood, one by pivot, and one in dryland. The 76” cotton gets 300 lb. of AMS (approximately half the total units of nitrogen for a normal crop), roughly half the irrigation, and not much else. “I always heard the Australians talk about the development of bigger root systems, and I’ve seen the same thing with wide-row cotton in my fields for several years,” he describes. “You do have to hammer down with PIX, but you also don’t need much water.”

Seed, fertility, and water input savings are immediate eye-catchers, but Chappell also has benefitted from a major reduction in plant disease, a change he attributes to increased air flow in the rows. “Boll rot and target spot are largely gone because we’ve got so much more air moving in there.”

Sunlight benefits any wide row crop, but the added exposure is an invitation to weed presence and Palmer amaranth proliferation—but not in Chappell’s rows. In May, he planted cotton seed into green covers, killed the mat with glyphosate the same day, and came back prior to emergence with Gramoxone and Direx. “Guys always ask me how I control weeds in wide rows, and my answer is straightforward: covers and no soil disturbance.”

Just before harvest, Chappell will begin a process to extract added value through cattle incorporation by placing green below white. He’ll use wide row cotton rows to overseed winter cover crops prior to defoliation, allowing the cover to green up before cotton harvest. As soon as picking is completed, he’ll release cows into the rows for rotational grazing. “Around our very last watering, before defoliation, we’ll spread cereal rye and radish, and there will be a green carpet under the cotton as we pick, gaining establishment time as a great feed source for our cattle. This is all about the overall economics.”

“Learn, Learn, and Learn”

Without exception, every year Chappell’s fields are a brew of multi-year trials and off-the-cuff experiments. Simply, he wastes no mistakes. “Learning really comes from recognizing what you did wrong,” he says. “Find out where the mistakes are—and adjust. Even when I completely miss, I want to learn, learn, and learn.”

Case in point. In 2020, following early soybean planting, Chappell’s crew switched to corn, but forgot to change the planter vDrives, and for several passes they planted corn at 130,000 seeds per acre. Instead of replanting, Chappell killed every other row and turned the outrageously high-population section into a skip-row corn trial. He expected a failure, but couldn’t resist the opportunity to watch the agronomic results. “Of course it didn’t work, but I had a chance to find out something new and put the lesson in my pocket. Every detail matters and no detail is as valuable as the one from your own rows. I’ve got more things happening in my fields than I can count, and I’ll always have it that way.”

Fueled by a profit-per-acre approach, Chappell contends 76”-row cotton is a means to significant input savings, and a strong fit for his operation. “I’ve even modified my picker for 76” rows and it won’t pick 38” anymore. This is a permanent change for me and there’s no way I can argue with the results.”