Cotton
Cotton planting sits at 7% nationwide, on track with the average, and as drought blankets the home of what’s known as the largest cotton patch in the country, dwindling crop outlooks are feeding cotton prices.
USDA released the first crop progress report of the season, and it showed cotton planting is running slightly behind with 4% of the U.S cotton crop currently planted. One meteorologist says drought may be a factor.
The shotgun houses and clapboard shacks are gone, but a child’s toy lingers in farmland rows. Time, tillage and rainfall reveal the sharecropper’s last testament: clusters of magnificent clay, agate and glass marbles.
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Coley Bailey, a third-generation grower, has hitched his 6,000-acre operation behind John Deere’s out-of-the-gate CP770 cotton picker—potentially the most proficient cotton harvesting machine to ever hit U.S. fields.
After the dizzying heights of $1.21 per pound in 2021, the Cotton Belt could see 12 million acres in 2022, and possibly more, contingent on a mercurial La Niña.
After a battle with COVID-19, first generation farmer Chance McMillan didn’t just lose his dad, but a life-long coach. That’s as the two had plans to finally farm full-time as father and son.
Cotton prices are a bright spot for cotton producers across the U.S. As harvest hits high-gear, yields are coming in strong, while prices remain at a 10-year high.
In one of the most heavily ignored and needless catastrophes in recent U.S. history, 548,000 acres of the Mississippi Delta were silently swallowed in 2019 and submerged for five months.
Cotton conditions look to be improving as the crop draws closer to harvest. According to the latest USDA data, 71% of the U.S. cotton crop is now rated good to excellent. That compares to 46% this time last year.