{"id":261232,"date":"2026-04-22T14:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T14:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/261232\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T14:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T14:53:12","slug":"cotton-precision-digital-tools-tested-in-texas-fields","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/261232\/","title":{"rendered":"Cotton precision: Digital tools tested in Texas fields"},"content":{"rendered":"

The digital agriculture team of the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Corpus Christi<\/a> has launched a project aimed at providing commercial cotton producers with advanced digital management tools and evaluating the new technology\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n

The researchers have teamed up with 11 cotton producers across the Texas Coastal Bend to evaluate and demonstrate the latest digital tools for in-season crop management directly in their commercial fields. The tools provide early-season estimations of crop biomass and fiber yield, allowing producers to make more timely decisions about crop management.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>Cotton producers working with Texas A&M AgriLife Research will use and help evaluate new digital tools that simulate and predict real-world crop production scenarios. (Michael Miller\/Texas A&M AgriLife)<\/p>\n

\u201cOur tools integrate drone-based and satellite remote sensing data to estimate key plant features, creating digital twins<\/a> of key production scenarios\u201d said Juan Landivar, Ph.D.<\/a>, director of the center at Corpus Christi. \u201cThese insights are specifically designed to support critical decision-making regarding plant growth regulator timing and rates, crop defoliation timing and lint yield forecasting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connecting technology to real-world production<\/p>\n

In addition to Landivar, the project and evaluation of emerging technologies is led by a multidisciplinary team from Texas A&M AgriLife Research<\/a> and the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service<\/a> at Corpus Christi:<\/p>\n

Josh McGinty, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension agronomist and associate professor in the Texas A&M Department of Soil and Crop Sciences<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yuri Calil, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension economist and assistant professor in the Texas A&M Department of Agricultural Economics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mahendra Bhandari, Ph.D., AgriLife Research digital agriculture lead and assistant professor in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences.<\/p>\n

Pankaj Pal, Ph.D., AgriLife Research data center director and associate research scientist.<\/p>\n

Jose Landivar, AgriLife Research senior research associate.<\/p>\n

Lei Zhao, Ph.D., AgriLife Research agricultural data scientist and postdoctoral researcher.<\/p>\n

The team works to ensure the research directly translates into economic and operational benefits for Texas growers.<\/p>\n

Producers who participate in the project gain immediate access to a digital agriculture data hub. This platform provides near-daily updates on crop development throughout the growing season. Key features of the hub include spatial heat maps that illustrate percent canopy cover and canopy health over time.<\/p>\n

After mid-season, the platform will also offer specific recommendations for crop termination timing and detailed lint yield estimates, giving additional decision-making support during critical production stages.<\/p>\n

Participant cotton producers in the research will also gain early access to digital tools under development by Texas A&M AgriLife<\/a> in Corpus Christi. Upcoming decision support features focus on irrigation requirement estimation, temporal crop biomass accumulation, and comprehensive assessments of economic risk and marketing prospects.<\/p>\n


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