Well, most years, yes, and a higher input crop as well, that requires constant attention. Maybe it's like comparing growing cattle on pasture to growing hogs, with the corn the cows and the cotton like the hogs needing pretty constant care and attention.

In south Georgia, we can make a bumper cotton crop on about 23" of water over about 140 days, and sometimes a good crop with 19" of water over 125 days, or even spreading about 20" over 150 days! We grow a lot of varieties that are more full season and indeterminate. Corn, on the other hand, will do good on about 23", more like 27" over 115 days, requiring a mad rush during peak water use.

Well in Kansas your growing season is going to be short, and you are going to have to grow a more determinate crop than what we do down south. The beauty about cotton in the south, and it may be less so up there, is that we see a tremendous opportunity to utilize the moisture whenever it does come. We try to manage fertility, water, and growth regulators to speed it up when it's dry and to slow it down when it's raining. We have a window that I would say is as much as 60 days long to recover from early or mid season stress, at least on non-irrigated cotton. If we can start getting some rains in mid-August, we can make a crop by late October or early November (1st frost is usually around Nov 12). Corn, on the other hand, can't hardly handle 21 days of stress without yield being reduced. We have some late April cotton that we are probably going to let continue to make another three weeks, as it shut down for three weeks in the summer, and is now coming back and making a top crop.

Water use, in summary, with cotton should be somewhat less than high yield corn, and, even up there, the window of water use peak should be a little wider than corn, which could be a real advantage for the cotton.

Now here is a real advantage to cotton, as you can pick and module it without waiting in line at the elevator! You don't have to aerate it or dry it either.