POT-LOOKING OKRA COTTON HAS PASSERS-BY LOOKING TWICE

ST. JOSEPH Okra leaf cotton has gained a measure of fame in Tensas
Parish this summer, and it's not because the plant helps produce
finer-than-average fabric.

Tensas residents, Lake Bruin weekenders and others who drive through
this farm-studded corner of the Louisiana Delta have taken note of
the okra leaf, parish agent Robert Goodson said, because it bears a
resemblance to another plant that pops up here sometimes.

They think it's marijuana, Goodson said. There've been about 15
people who've asked me how to smoke it so far.

Goodson has told them all the truth about the mysterious crop it's
not pot, despite the five spindly leaves that adorn each plant and
make some think it's at least kin to cannabis.

The variety does have advantages. Its thin leaves provide a permeable
canopy over the cotton bolls, making it easier for insecticides to
seep into the plant. With thicker foliage, other cotton variants make
farmers work harder to protect them from boll weevils and field
pests, said Steve Hague, an agronomist at the Northeast Louisiana
Experiment Station in St. Joseph.

Additionally, okra leaf plants give textile mills finer ingredients
for such products as clothing and bed sheets, Hague said.

The variety isn't at the top of the cotton variety contest as far as
yields go, but it really does produce high-quality cotton, he said.
It really is fine cotton.

Despite its benefits, farmers have been slow to adopt okra leaf, said
Jack Jones, a former professor of agronomy at LSU who still helps
coordinate experiments at the college's research stations. Most of
the okra leaf in Tensas is located on the Northeast Experiment
Station's 300-acre spread off Louisiana 605.

Reasons why it is not in, er, high demand, is that plants don't shade
out weeds as well as other cotton variants, Jones said. Also, okra
leaf, developed in Australia in the 1980s, is not immune to the
tobacco bugworm, which plagues cotton farms across the South.

I think there might always be that stigma attached to the okra leaf
cotton, Jones said. It's just one of those things.

And Hague, the agronomist, said he hopes people in Tensas don't try
to use the crops for recreational purposes.

The best-case scenario if someone tried to smoke one would be for
nothing to happen, he said. We aren't too sure what the worst case
would be, but I'm sure we wouldn't want to see it.