Moisture Extremes Inflicting Early-season Cotton Pains

While row crop and wheat farmers face weather challenges from a recent drop in temperatures from the central Plains to the northern Midwest, the drought is doing the same for many cotton farmers in the southern Plains. Conditions are “extremely dry” in parts of West Texas, for example, where farmers say they’re seeing higher early crop abandonment already with conditions “probably drier” than the major drought year of 2011. In some areas where rain hasn’t fallen in months, cotton farmers are halting planting operations. But the opposite is true in the Southeast where some farmers are mulling acreage shifts as excess rains continue, especially given the soybean price range right now. Cotton futures have increased steadily over the last two weeks since the severity of southern Plains drought started clarifying. See more on the current state of the U.S. cotton crop.