West Texas fields of unharvested cotton have the appearance of fresh blankets of snow. In turn, the harvested cotton rests in round bales and modules at the edge of fields or in gin yards waiting for processing.
About 37 percent of this year’s Texas cotton crop has been harvested and 90 percent of the crop in fields has bolls open, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.
“Harvest is in high gear (literally for many folks) and moving quickly,” said Brad Easterling, integrated pest manager for Glasscock, Reagan and Upton counties. “As is usually the case, reports that are coming in are quite mixed. Some places caught a late rain, more rain, or the perfect rain. Others were not so lucky.”
Cotton gins started processing in mid-October as harvest got underway. The Lone Star State’s three West Texas USDA classing offices – Abilene, Lamesa and Lubbock – begin grading the 2017 crop in October.
The Abilene classing office has graded 34,829 bales from 18 gins thus far for the season from West Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.
A total of 13,786 bales have been classed from West Texas which includes the Concho Valley and Big Country. Oklahoma submitted 16,486 samples last week and 21,044 samples for the season. Harvest has not started in Kansas.
In Lubbock, 46,370 samples were classed last week bringing the season total to 49,661 bales from 45 gins.
In Lamesa, 47,009 samples were classed the last week of October bringing the season total to 65,903 bales from 28 gins.
The other classing office in Texas is located at Corpus Christi. Harvest in that region is almost complete. A season total of 1,593,283 bales from 59 gins have been graded.
A sample of at least 4 ounces is taken from each side of the cotton bale at the gin by a licensed sampling agent, and the 8-ounce sample is delivered by the agent or designated hauler to the USDA classing facility.
To date, a season total of 3,420,529 samples from 428 gins have been classed in the United States.
Although this year’s crop has been damaged from hail and high winds in the High Plains and Rolling Plains, the overall yields could reach near another record. In South Texas and the Coastal Bend, damage estimates from Hurricane Harvey could reach $200 million between livestock, hay, feed, cotton, rice and soybeans, according to the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.
“A northern packing a particularly cold punch moved through the Texas High Plains in late-October setting up the likely potential for the region’s first widespread hard killing freeze of the 2017 crop year,” said Mary Jane Buerkle, with Lubbock-based Plains Cotton Growers, Inc.
Several modules were lost to fire last week at Roscoe in Nolan County and at the Wall Co-Op Gin south of San Angelo.
Earlier in the growing season some farmers in Fisher County lost half their planted cotton around Sweetwater, according to Karin Kuykendall, executive director for the 31-county Rolling Plains Cotton Growers Association around Abilene and 12-county Southern Rolling Plains Cotton Growers Association around San Angelo.
“Even with the losses, the acres left in the two regions are projected to yield an above-average cotton crop,” Kuykendall said. “There are pockets that will have more production that last year, but the overall crop will fall short of a bumper crop.”
She said the combined yield in both regions was a near record at 1,268,819 bales in 2016.
The nation’s 2017 cotton crop could reach 19.2 million bales, according to the USDA World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates.
Source: www.reporternews.com