Cotton Maintains Good Condition
The nation's cotton crop is larger and remains in better shape compared to the same time last year.
USDA meteorologist, Brad Rippey has the latest
Rippey: “As we move to the south, taking a look at the cotton crop, which remains in pretty good shape but behind schedule on development. We see just 36% of the US cotton bolls open that’s behind the 5-year average of 43% and 10 points behind last year at this time when 46% of the cotton bolls were open.
Cotton harvest at 5% is behind last year at this time as well as the five-year average.
Rippey: Cotton condition bouncing back a little from last week. Currently 64% good to excellent and up 3 points from last week. 6% very poor to poor. That’s down a point from last week. That continues to place this year’s crop considerably above what we saw at this time a year ago when we were at just 45% good to excellent and 27% very poor to poor.”
The total production of cotton is up worldwide and most of that change is driven by production increases in the United States.
The U.S. cotton production estimate is up 27 percent from last year’s crop. Production in Florida is estimated to be close to 46% above 2020 at 150-thousand bales. Georgia production is estimated at 2.2 million bales. That’s up about 1 percent. In Alabama, production is forecast at 770,000 bales, up 5 percent from 2020.
