By JOYANNA LOVE/ Senior Staff Writer

Chilton County is known for its edible harvests, but there are hundreds of acres devoted to an inedible crop — cotton.

Local fields are being harvested now and will likely go through late November.

Farmer Daniel Kelley said when cotton is harvested depends heavily on how much rain the field has in a given year.

“We normally start harvesting cotton … between the first and the tenth of October,” Kelley said. “We are a little bit late getting started this year because of all the early rain we had.”

The cotton harvest is usually finished after Thanksgiving. Kelley said rain will delay the harvest because cotton needs to be dry before it can be picked.

“I need about three more weeks of dry weather to get through,” Kelley said. “Two to three days a week is all I have been able to pick since we got started because of rain.”

To pick the cotton, Kelley drives a large vehicle designed for the task over his field. It only takes one pass to shear the cotton from the stalk. While it may look like there is a lot of cotton left in the field after one pass, Kelley said it is not enough worth incurring the cost to run the machine for a second pass.

After being picked, the cotton is dumped into another vehicle for transportation to a cotton gin. Inside of each fluffy ball of raw cotton are several large seeds that are removed as the cotton goes through the gin.

“When they spread the lint in big bales, they will send it out to the mills,” Kelley said.

At the mills, the cotton will be made into thread, clothing and other cotton products. Since Kelley sells the cotton through an association, he said he does not know what his cotton may be used for.

Each year the cotton plants start growing in May.

“Usually about the first of September you will see a bunch of white cotton start popping up,” Kelley said.

He said if cotton can be harvested in September, it is “not a good sign” because it means the summer was extremely dry, and the cotton will not be a good quality.

Weather poses the greatest challenge to growing cotton, but having the right soil conditions is also important.

At the end of a harvest, Kelley will have the soil tested to determine what it might need to replenish nutrients the next cotton crop will need. The soil naturally has sand and clay components. Kelley said having good soil is important for the cotton seeds to grow into a good crop.

Planting usually starts in April or May.

Kelley rotates with cotton, corn and soybeans to help the soil every few years.

The Kelley family has been farming in Chilton county, mostly the Verbena and Cooper (or Coopers) communities, for decades. The 600 acres that Daniel Kelley works on now have been farmed for at least 50 years. His brothers help him harvest the cotton.