Four hundred and fifty minutes below freezing last week was just enough of a start for select dryland cotton producers on the High Plains to get harvest underway.
“Yeah, we had sprayed some cotton prior to it, prepped it as they stay start opening the bolls and foliating it, so it gets it in the process ready to harvest faster,” said Joseph Slatten, ag producer.
“With the rains, I believe this cotton crop is a lot better than we imagined,” said Keith Mixon, general manager of Carson County Cotton Gin. “We’ve already seen some 2-bale dryland cotton. I think their grades are excellent. We haven’t seen any downside to it.”
“Cotton season is a really fun time,” said Wendi Horst, Public relations manager at Carson County Cotton Gin. Our cotton producers are always gung-ho, ready to go; they love to get the cotton out of the field and in the gin. They love to see how they’ve put in all the work throughout the year.”
Getting in excess of 26 inches of rain during the growing season of the cotton crop improved the outlook for profits. What dampens the outlook is the fact that the price is down significantly.
“Well, the cotton mark is actually about .66 cents on the December market,” said Mixon. “We trade in December and March. Cotton is in a global economy. The tariffs have really hurt us, so we need China number one to honor their agreements with the United States, that would make cotton come back a little bit stronger.”
“It’s down considerably even from last year,” said Slatten. “It’s just been a lot tougher year, but hopefully we’ve got better cotton, so we’ll be making more. More cotton is more money.”
Many producers are spraying their crop, and what they need to begin harvest is another sustained freeze before they put their cotton strippers on the land and get the cotton out of the field and into the gin.
Source: https://abc7amarillo.com/