USDA REPORT BEARISH BUT COTTON PRICES HOLD
The recently released USDA monthly supply and demand report was bearish, increasing the U.S. crop and cutting exports resulting in a 500,000 bale increase in ending stocks while also increasing world carry out by 3 million bales, but cotton prices held in spite of the bad news. Listen to Moultrie commodity broker Keith Brown explain why on last Friday’s On The Farm at OTF-BrownCottonUpdate10-14-11 .
Also, see University of Georgia Extension economist Dr. Don Shurley’s newsletter at ShurleyOct14 .
GET IT OFF, OPEN AND OUT
We have been pretty fortunate in Coffee County with our May planted cotton. There have been some outstanding dry land and irrigated yields and few reports of poor yields. We had some timely rains until mid-July but I am afraid it is going to get pretty ugly for our very late-May and June planted cotton as we went from mid-July until September 20 with only two days with any significant rainfall (and those where only half-inch). It may sound like a bad Dwight Yoakam song but the last two weeks of October is the time to GET IT OFF (defoliated), OPEN (get those bolts open) AND OUT (harvested) while we still have some warm temperatures to do the job. It is important to remember two conditions that occur after mid-October in Coffee County. First, it takes 3.5 days after mid-October to the end of October to equal one day of growth in the summer and two out of the last five years our first killing frost came in the first week of November (November 7 in 2010 and 2007). The late-season cotton defoliation options are on page 99 at Com_Cotton . Growers may want to risk giving ultra-late planted cotton (mid-to-late June) some more time before defoliating, but this is a risk as there may not be enough warm temperatures to get the bolls open or an early frost may freeze leaves and make it very difficult to open bolls.
