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By Lana Robinson
Field Editor
Frequent, torrential rains have dampened the hopes of South Plains cotton producers who were working towards a record 4.2 billion-acre harvest this fall. The weather hasn't cooperated much this year in terms of helping the crop reach maturity.
"Most of our producers, as well as crop watchers, are tremendously concerned about the excessive rain. We really haven't harvested any cotton at all, and here it is Oct. 6," Randy Bowman, Extension cotton agronomist based at Lubbock, reported. "They usually apply harvest aid chemicals to terminate, but virtually none of that has occurred. Unfortunately, it's going to push this crop very late because of maturity issues—number one, because of the cooler temperatures in August and July; and number two, the issue of all this rainfall since mid-September, and this most recent rain. The growers can't get into the fields. There's not enough open weather to apply harvest aid chemicals."
Bowman said the big story in the 10 days preceding Oct. 6 was that cotton fields in parts of the 20-county cotton growing region had received upwards of 15 to 16 inches of rainfall.
"A major storm came through here last night (Oct. 5). I noticed at the Halfway Experiment Station they received 3.75 inches yesterday. I've poured seven inches out of my rain gauge at my house here in Lubbock in the last 10 days," he said. "It's certainly not good."
Bowman noted that August was considerably cooler than normal across the Texas Plains. Heat units were 16 percent below normal for the month.
"The first two weeks of September were excellent (with the exception of Sept. 8, when Lubbock experienced a record low of 47 degrees, wiping out the old date record of 51 degrees in 1918). We had somewhat cooler than normal nighttime temperatures, but above normal in the daytime. Cotton should have gotten a considerable amount of maturity from that. I do know a lot of fields did firm up the first two weeks of September," he said.
Bowman expects some degradation in terms of color grade and increased bark contamination. However, he said it is a little early to say for sure.
"When we go through a lot of fall rain, we typically see some degradation in terms of color grade and some higher bark problems than usual. I do think that we will see some low mic cotton, certainly coming out north of Lubbock. I hope I'm wrong with that," he said.
Approximately 10 percent of the West Texas "cotton patch" crop doesn't make it each year due to weather, insects or disease. It remains to be seen how much will weather the storms of 2004.
"We see some really good dryland in a lot of places, and some of the irrigated looks good. They've got us forecast at a 4.2 million bale crop. I don't know if we're going to make that. Once the storms get through, we need some open skies so we can start drying some of this cotton down, and getting on with the business at hand. Just the simple logistical difficulty is going to make harvesting a nightmare. Any significant rainfall event will shut us down as far as harvesting," he said.
Bowman said Parmer and Bailey counties were hit by a major storm in late September that hailed on some cotton acreage.
"I think it hailed on 15,000 to 20,000 acres in Floyd County and something similar in Crosby, but it's still too early to tell. A lot of growers haven't been able to check fields because of all the rain," he said.
That makes the second time Floyd County cotton farmers have been hit by hail in 2004. On June 21, Floyd County lost about 18,000 acres of cotton to hail in the north and east side of the county.
Texas Farm Bureau Vice President Lloyd Arthur, who grows cotton near Ralls, in Crosby County, said dryland cotton looked decent, and in some instances, better than the irrigated crop locally. In some isolated fields, farmers had defoliated their cotton, he said. Although Arthur would like it to stop raining now, he is thankful for the timely rains that kept the crop progressing throughout the summer.
"We haven't used our irrigation anywhere—thank goodness! The natural gas and electricity is more expensive this year than we're accustomed to," he said.
According to the West Texas Mesonet (www.mesonet.ttu.edu), which tracks rainfall on a daily basis for the region, Ralls got less rain than some neighboring communities with .33 inches on Oct. 5.
Arthur said he was growing more pessimistic that the lingering cool, wet weather has stalled the maturity of the South Plains crop.
"I don't think there's any doubt we have the potential for a good crop. It depends on the time of frost. If we have an average to early frost, it will hurt some yields. A late frost, like we've been accustomed to the last few years, could help us make up some of that time," he suggested. "Our normal freeze date is Oct. 23. We have had it as early as mid-September and as late as the fifth or sixth of November."
Arthur said High Plains growers near Dalhart are even farther behind on heat units, and their freeze time is a good week or so ahead of that of the Southern High Plains.
"So it all depends on Mother Nature from here on out," he observed.
As far as prices are concerned, Arthur said he didn't think the impact of recent hurricanes in the cotton-producing states along the Gulf of Mexico would be significant.
"The major portion of the Delta growing area was spared," he said. "There were some spots in Alabama and through there that grew cotton that had some damage, but in its September report, USDA pegged the national crop at 20.9 million bales—the highest it's ever been. I don't know that isolated areas hurt by weather will affect the market all that much...I think if that was the case, we would already have heard, or the market would have reflected it or would have reacted, and it hasn't."
