Even after Hurricane Beryl hit, the rains continued in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, preventing crops from being harvested and leaving questions about crop quality in South Texas.
Jeff Nunley, executive director of the South Texas Cotton and Grain Association, says a week of dry weather in the Corpus Christi area allowed cotton farmers to resume harvest.
“I think a lot of the cotton has come out,” Nunley says. “Some producers are getting close to finishing in the Corpus area. I don’t know that many have started in the Upper Coast. Some have begun defoliation around the Victoria area.
Hurricane Beryl
“The Upper Coast had a phenomenal crop prior to Beryl,” Nunley says. “It remains to be seen how it will come out after the storm.”
He thinks most of the cotton will be okay. “Most of the cotton wasn’t open, so I don’t know if they lost yield. But strong winds will tangle plants and could be challenging to get pickers through.”
Yields might be around average. “I’ve talked to some of the producers down south who say it’s about a bale and-a-half to a bale-and-three quarters, which on a year with the market prices where they are is not enough to make money.”
Nunley says he’s had no reports on ginning and quality losses.
“I think gins are working through cotton harvested prior to the storm and the rain. The quality before the storm was good.”
Nunley says grain “did okay. Some grain in the Upper Coast wasn’t harvested. They probably suffered yield losses and sprouting. Beryl was bad enough, but then we had 10 days of wet, rainy weather.”
Some grain was already harvested, he says. “If it wasn’t out, it probably blew over. I’m not sure if they were able to pick it up. A lot of corn blew down in Wharton County, and if it didn’t stand in water, I think it was okay. But they may have lost some trying to pick it up.”
Nunley says one farmer reported potential 180-bushel corn before the storm and 140 afterward.
“I thought corn harvest would be early but they’re just now wrapping up in the Victoria area,” he says. “I saw a lot of combines running over the weekend (August 10) It’s been ready for a couple of weeks but they’ve been waiting for fields to dry enough to get a machine in there.”
He says some growers are hesitant to risk machinery damage or tearing up fields in wet conditions.
“Part of that is a reflection of the agriculture economy with margins so tight and looking at possible losses,” Nunley says. “The last thing they want to do is spend money getting land and equipment back in shape. They are trying to minimize the amount of money they spend to harvest the crop.”
Lower Rio Grande Valley
Webb Wallace, crop consultant in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, reports “no good news down here. The season started off good but it rained in late June and July, exactly when we didn’t need it. I made a round yesterday through Willacy County and it looks like most of the cotton will be shredded. It had terrible regrowth on top and bolls were poor.
“The crop was going to be mediocre to start with,” Wallace says. “With all the weather damage and the price of cotton, farmers are hurting.” He says the insurance price with the seed endorsement was probably close to 90 cents. But with weather damage and the market price being so low, the weather discounts and grade discounts on top of that, farmers could wind up in the 50-cent range as an actual market price.”
He says much of the 118,000 acres planted in the Valley remains in the field.
“I was driving around yesterday and I’m surprised how much has not been defoliated or shredded. I don’t know if they’re still waiting for adjusters to look at it but very little has been harvested.”
Behind schedule
Wallace adds that gin reports indicate harvest is behind past years. “Last week, something like 7,000 bales had been ginned versus the previous year’s 30,000 for that date.”
He says most irrigated farmers took prevented planting insurance coverage. “Some farmers had one irrigation, some had none. Our water situation is dire. One good thing about dryland is every year is a new year. Next year could be great. But irrigated acreage outlook is pessimistic.”
Wallace says grain escaped most of the storm and heavy rain damage. “Grain was all harvested before it got any rain on it, but it was also a mediocre grain crop because it didn’t get any rain in May when we really needed it to fill out the heads.
“I wish there were some good news.”
A rainy July
In her last Pest Cast Newsletter of the season, Texas AgriLife Extension IPM Specialist Danielle Sekula noted that July was one of the rainiest months she’s seen.
“We have been able to dry out this week and last (early August) and see some cotton harvest as well as many more fields being treated with defoliants,” she wrote.
“We went from a dry, drought-stricken cotton growing season to a very wet harvest season.”
She said Cameron and Willacy counties were hit hardest “by ongoing rain events as their cotton was the furthest along at the beginning of July (most with 75% to 90% open bolls) and received numerous rains (about 10 rains or more) knocking off cotton from the lower half of the plant to the ground and losing a significant amount of their yields.”
Sekula also noted “visual evidence of cotton seed sprouting, more severe in some areas but varied across the Valley to some degree, as well as boll rotting and strung-out cotton.”
Weather conditions prompted some producers in Cameron and Willacy counties to harvest cotton in early July. “After many rain events, farmers began to shred plants and plow them under due to very low yields and seed sprouting. Hidalgo County seemed to fare a little better as most of the cotton will be harvested. Despite the recent rains, it is now being defoliated and harvested.
“I have seen lint stained by black sooty mold developed from heavy whitefly populations feeding,” Sekula said. “They have increased with the intense heat the last two weeks.”
Sekula said that Edward Herrera, zone manager for the LRGV Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation, reported 118,602 acres planted into cotton but not all will carry to harvest. “Most of the cotton acreage being destroyed is from producers with cotton in dryland areas who are destroying the crop due to poor production,” Herrera said.
“The percentage of cotton being prepared for harvest edged up to about 30% being defoliated with about 10% of total acreage picked.”
Source: https://www.farmprogress.com/