Facts on Cotton

In today’s Home Grown we take a closer look at one of Arizona’s five C’s: Cotton!

Did you know cotton is over 5,000 years old?

Here in the desert southwest cotton has been grown for centuries. It has always been a staple in our local agriculture production. In fact, we grow about 15,000 to 20,000 acres of cotton in Yuma every year.

Most of the cotton we grow here goes overseas to textile mills and comes back to the U.S. in the clothes we wear.

A lot of cotton is used in blue jeans. Did you know that the average American owns seven pairs of blue and in one acre field of cotton about 600 pairs of blue jeans can be produced.

John Boelts, who is the 1st Vice President of the Arizona Farm Bureau explains to 13 On Your Side more about the cotton we grow here.

“So the cotton we grow here in Yuma is short staple cotton like this cotton you see behind us. But we also grow long staple cotton or Pima cotton,” Boelts said. “You may have heard Egyptian cotton talked about but that’s really an advertising scheme. They are basically advertising for long staple cotton grown in Egypt, but we actually grow some of the finest long staple cotton in the world right here in Yuma,” he added.

Most of the cotton in our area is planted in February and March and harvested i September so it takes about six months to grow.

The crop itself is perfect for our dry weather. It can last six to eight weeks without water.

Arizona’s five C’s are: Cotton, copper, cattle, climate and citrus.