Mississippi State, Mississippi
July 2, 2009
Mississippi’s 2009 cotton is
shaping up to be more a story of how the mighty have fallen than
another chapter in the reign of King Cotton.
A poor outlook on market prices and continued high input costs
led many producers to move away from cotton, and wet weather
during the April and May planting window kept even more acres
out of cotton production. The U.S. Department of Agriculture
estimates Mississippi has 270,000 acres of cotton in 2009, the
lowest on record. For comparison, Mississippi had 1.2 million
acres of cotton in 2006.
Darrin Dodds, cotton specialist with the
Mississippi State University
Extension Service, is happy to have even that many acres in the
ground.
“In some cases, we have had folks successful with getting a good
stand the first time, but others replanted three times,” Dodds
said. “It’s kind of surprising with all the weather we’ve had
that we got as much cotton planted as we did.”
The majority of Mississippi’s cotton is typically planted
between April 15 and May 15. This year, producers didn’t finish
until about June 10. That pushes harvest from mid- to
late-September to October and November.
“If you start late, you’re going to finish late, and then you
really run into problems with weather in the fall,” Dodds said.
“We may have a long, favorable growing season where planting
late doesn’t necessarily hurt us. However, it appears that we
are in for a very hot, very dry summer. This combined with
unpredictable weather conditions this fall could lead to lower
yields and trouble getting this crop out of the field.”
Producers can do a few things to help cotton mature as quickly
as possible.
“Make sure you get irrigation started on time and keep up with
it. Don’t get behind on it, as this can really make or break a
crop,” Dodds said. “Growth regulators can be used to try to
limit the plant’s vegetative growth and put all the effort into
boll production.”
Angus Catchot, Extension entomologist, said insects were just
becoming a problem in some areas by the end of June.
“We’re dealing with plant bugs in older cotton, especially next
to corn. They’ve been relatively light up until this point, but
we’re about to start having to treat regularly for them,
especially in the Delta,” Catchot said. “The plant bugs have
been out there, but they were in wild hosts that had grown up
with all the rain in May. As things got hot and dry, the plant
bugs began moving into cotton.”
Cotton in the Delta is dealing with spider mites, which find the
current hot, dry weather ideal. Cotton aphids are causing
problems only in a few places, but those areas with these pests
have already had to spray for them.
“All these things are treatable, but it’s a financial problem if
you have to treat a lot of insects with cotton prices already so
low,” Catchot said.
John Michael Riley, Extension agricultural economist, said
cotton prices have been moving higher since mid-June. The
October futures price is about 55.5 cents per pound, and
December futures are at 60.5 cents a pound.
“At this time last year, we were experiencing a drastic run-up
in all commodity prices, and harvest cotton futures were about
75 cents a pound, but that didn’t last,” Riley said. “Current
prices are reminiscent of actual harvest prices in 2007.”
He said the decrease in acres continues to indicate cotton is
losing ground to other, more attractive crops such as corn and
soybeans. But that doesn’t mean cotton is leaving Mississippi.
“Many producers refuse to abandon the crop completely,” Riley
said. |
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