 Hey, I'm Jill Walks, 4-H Agent of Barbara County here with Gardner Gunn, one of our 4-H'ers, Real Gardner's Family Farm. Tell me Gardner, how many acres do y'all have here? 10,000 acres. 10,000. And what all do you grow here? Corn, cotton, soybeans, peanuts, and wheat. That is amazing. Well, we're going to be talking mostly about cotton today, so come on with us to go on our cotton adventure. We drove about 10 minutes on bumpy dirt roads through acres and acres of corn that was planted earlier this spring. Gardner explained that Indians used to live in this area, and after plowing, he can find pieces of broken pottery in the fields. Here, the farmers are changing out the seed to try a different variety. Farmers sometimes experiment with different seeds to see which type grows better. The hoppers are the yellow plastic bins that hold the seed. While they are empty, the farmers check the seed brushes, which clean off debris from cotton seed right before they are dropped into the soil. The farmers move in the cotton planter to another field and doesn't have to travel on any main highways, but sometimes he has to. Next time you're in a vehicle traveling slow behind a large tractor like this, you can be patient because the farmers doing us a favor by growing something we all need. Did you know cotton is in the same plant family as okra? And did you know that cotton has been grown and used for thousands of years? This spray is a pesticide to help bite bugs and a fertilizer to help the cotton grow. This planter plants 12 rows at the time, depositing two seeds every 13 inches. It will take around two months to plant 4,000 acres of cotton, which will be ready for picking in six to eight months. The plant will bloom with a white flower that changes to pink. As the bloom dries, a hard ball or a bowl is formed. The soft cotton emerges when this bowl cracks open. Now it's time to pick the cotton, which will take about three to four months with a great, big, huge machine. This is gardener's favorite piece of equipment, the cotton picker. It won't be used until the fall when the cotton is ready to be picked. These yellow triangles cover up barbed spindles that rotate quickly to pick the cotton. The black tubes blow it upward into the basket. When the basket gets full, the cotton is dumped into the back module builder, which presses it into a round shape. The cotton has been belled and wrapped. The farmer decides when and where to drop the module. A round cotton module can weigh 6,000 pounds. That's three tons or as much as an elephant. The modules will be taken to a local gin to be separated into seed, lint, and trash. It will then be taken to a warehouse and sold. We asked Gardner, what is his favorite part of living on such a large farm, and he said that he likes having plenty of space to goof off with his buddies.