Hard October Freeze

I'm in my third semester of graduate school, I enrolled in Digital Imaging in Agriculture. I knew it would be a great opportunity to practice my photography skills, but what I didn’t know is that I would learn so much about agriculture in the South Plains. I experienced a diary goat farm and learned why they smell like goat cheese (a smell that is forever seared in my mind), had a lengthy conversation with a horse owner, found out I’m allergic to sorghum, learned female cows have horns and why some don’t, and learned that a frozen cotton boll is not always a bad thing. Well, on October 30th of 2019, Lubbock was greeted with a hard freeze. From freezing rain/drizzle to a thick blanket of fog, everything seemed to be frozen. My initial thought was that harvest was ruined. However, when I arrived at work, a colleague informed me that I was wrong. It was explained to me that for cotton, the leaves fall off after a freeze, making the harvest easier. In return, farmers don’t have to pay a crop duster to spay a defoliant on the plants. After being told this, I returned to my images and realized that it did exactly that. There were hardly any leaves left on the plants after the October freeze. I guess you could say that this semester has been eye-opening for me and I am thankful for that. Article written by Katie Main (KCBD): https://www.kcbd.com/2019/10/31/freezing-temperatures-will-ready-cotton-harvest/