Cotton: yield, quality sink in rain
Oct 26, 2009 11:32 AM, By Elton Robinson, Farm Press Editorial Staff
As of mid-October, many cotton producers who should be halfway through a typical harvesting and ginning season hadn’t picked a stalk of cotton.
Excessive rainfall in September and October has reduced yield, hurt quality and frustrated cotton harvest in the Mid-South and portions of the Southeast.
SOAKED cotton boll after rain in Washington County, Miss. (Photo: Delta Council)
USDA’s estimates indicate that as of Oct. 18, only a very small percentage of the Mid-South cotton crop had been harvested. Though not as pronounced, delays are evident in some of the Southeast.
For some Mid-South cotton producers, 2009 marks the second year in a row that disaster has struck during harvest season.
In 2008, hurricanes Gustav and Ike hit Louisiana with 30-plus inches of rain and extensive devastation in the region’s cotton, corn and soybean crops. “We harvested the cotton crop, but there were tremendous yield reductions,” said Jay Hardwick, a Newellton, La., cotton producer and chairman of the National Cotton Council.
Louisiana agriculture commissioner Mike Strain called the hurricane losses “the largest natural disaster affecting agriculture, aquaculture, forestry and fisheries in Louisiana history.”
In the fall of 2008, cotton producers affected by the hurricanes “were in a spiral of economic loss and bewilderment over what to do,” Hardwick said. “We had to reschedule debt and asked Congress for some type of response.”
Not much of a response from government ever came, however, and all growers could hope for was a better year in 2009. The chances were good for a favorable growing and harvest season, if you consider the odds against two catastrophes in a row.
But those hopes went down the drain in 2009, as subtropical moisture and other events collided over the Delta in the spring, then sat down like an obnoxious neighbor who refused to leave. The bad weather created an early cotton crop and a late cotton crop coming out of the spring. Today, more bad weather is delaying harvest of the early crop while delaying maturity of the late crop.
Bolls once counted on for yield might not make it into the basket now, especially if the region is hit by a couple of hard early frosts. “We have a tremendous amount of cotton that was planted late,” Hardwick said. “Those bolls appear to have been frozen in time. Normally we have to have substantial heat units and great weather to mature out those last bolls that often can be the difference between making it and breaking it.”
As of mid-October, many cotton producers who should be halfway through a typical harvesting and ginning season hadn’t picked a stalk of cotton.
“It’s a mess,” said Hardwick, whose crop on Oct. 16 was 100 percent defoliated and 100 percent unpicked. “The cotton looks like a wet cat hanging on a stalk. Not to make light of it, but as long as you have your health and family, some of these catastrophes that happen from time to time can be worked through. It’s not pleasant by any means, and it is very serious.”
Acceptable Use Policy blog comments powered by Disqus
