The 2024 growing season has proven to be a showcase for several NexGen cotton varieties, according to Robert Lemon, Product Development Specialist/Senior Agronomist for Americot. That’s especially true for what he describes as the company’s flagship varieties – NG 3195 B3XF, NG 4190 B3XF, and NG 3930 B3XF.
“We continue to get good reports about our varieties,” he says. “For example, both NG 3195 B3XF and NG 4190 B3XF have excellent heat tolerance. We can see that when we grow our seed blocks in Arizona. It’s an important feature that we certainly focus on, so those varieties are doing what we expect them to do.”
NG 3195 B3XF features a wide geographic footprint, ranging from the North Plains of Texas and on east through the Mid-South and Southeast, and up into the Mid-Atlantic states. “It has really caught on strongly in the Carolinas and Virginia over the past few years,” says Lemon, “and university trials bear this out.”
The footprint for NG 4190 B3XF may not be quite as large, notes Lemon, but it is still an exceptional variety for Central and South Texas.
“I recently looked at data from those areas, and for the third year in a row, it looks like NG 4190 B3XF is going to capture all of the Extension on-farm trials again,” he reports. “Growers in the Brazos Bottom this year told us it’s the best cotton they’ve ever had on their farms. It has shown the ability to wait on the rain, if you will, which is especially important on the heavy black clay soils new over most of the Central and South Texas region.”
Farther north in the High Plains and North Plains of Texas and into Oklahoma and Kansas, NG 3930 B3XF provides growers proven success in a mid-maturity variety.
“It has a great agronomic package including bacterial blight resistance and Verticillium wilt tolerance, which is really important to growers in that area,” adds Lemon. “It just fits that latitude.”
Potential Newcomers for 2025
Several new NexGen varieties featuring ThryvOn technology are showing high promise for 2025, says Lemon.
“We’re really excited about an experimental ThryvOn line for the Mid-South that is also root knot nematode resistant,” he says. “Preliminary trial work indicates that potential variety is going to be very high yielding.”
Another option is a very early maturing ThryvOn variety for the North Plains into Kansas and for replant and late planted scenarios. Lemon notes that if it is introduced, it will be the earliest maturing variety on the market.
“Versatility is the word that I like for this,” he says. “It could potentially be a double crop behind vegetables or behind wheat or other options.”
In addition, the company is looking at some potential XF only varieties with disease resistance and outstanding fiber quality for the High Plains and North Plains of Texas.
