| January, 2008 | THE LATEST SCOOP ON YOUR FARMLAND | Volume 19, Number 4 |
As we had expected, our tenant's Pima cotton harvest was poor, with a yield of only 1.86 bales per acre, or 931 pounds. This resulted from the lack of rain last winter which is needed to leech out the salts from the irrigation water in the seed planting zone, along with high weed pressure. Our tenant spent about $100 per acre on weeding crews to control the weeds, which wasn't enough.
Our tenant has all next year's cotton land tilled, fertilized, and listed. He has planted some wheat, and the rains have germinated it nicely, as the picture below shows. He has taken advantage of the currently high wheat price by pre-selling just over 2 tons per acre for $295 per ton. This is by far the highest price he has ever received for wheat. With our tenant's usual luck, the price available next summer will undoubtedly be even higher.
The Pima cotton has been placed in a sales pool and the eventual price should end up being more than $1.00 per pound. That, as well as the unprecendented water sale last summer, has allowed a substantial rent increase despite the poor Pima cotton yield. As usual, we have no idea how our tenant calculates the rent, nor what it might be next year. Upon serious consideration, we're not sure he even does calculate the rent. He may be just throwing a dart into a piece of paper with various numbers written on it.
We hope you all had a Merry Christmas and that you have a happy and prosperous New Year!
Robert Sturgeon
Publisher, Editor, Reporter, Ace Photographer, Newsroom Flunky, Webmaster
rsturge@inreach.com
http://www.vistech.net/users/rsturge
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