Disappointing Cotton Crop Results

The 2000 Acala cotton crop came in at only 2.17 bales per acre. The price was also low, at $.71 per pound including the Federal Loan Deficiency Payment. Our tenant is spending the winter closely examining what went wrong during the growing season to try to prevent any recurrence of this result. The rain that forced the replanting back in April certainly hurt. The rain that knocked some of the crop off the plants in October added its effects. Our tenant has already changed one practice by adding gypsum as a soil amendment this past autumn in the hope that this will aid in water penetration and improve seedbed conditions. Changes in the irrigation methods are also under intensive study.

The 2000 Pima crop was also mediocre, but not nearly so poor as the Acala crop. The yield was about 2.67 bales per acre. The crop's quality, a very important component in the success of any Pima crop, was badly damaged by the unseasonable October rains. Even though the price of Pima was above $1.00 per pound, our tenant only received $.94 per pound for his. He did take out rain damage insurance on the Pima crop, but the insurance settlement is still unknown at this time.

Newly Planted Wheat Field

The field work is complete and the new wheat field basks in a sunny San Joaquin Valley winter day, awaiting the irrigation and rains that will spring it into life.

Robert Sturgeon
Publisher, Editor, Reporter, Ace Photographer, Newsroom Flunky, Webmaster
rsturge@inreach.com
http://www.vistech.net/users/rsturge