Unusually Wet Rainy Season

Our farmland is in a Mediterranean climate that features dry summers and wet, rainy winters. This past rainy season started early, in October, and was very wet compared to the average precipitation. This resulted in a difficult cotton harvest season. Also, it precluded our tenant from planting any winter wheat. Instead, our tenant will plant the entire farm to Pima cotton. Thanks to the new pump he had to have installed last spring, he should have plenty of irrigation water.

Another result of the unusually wet rainy season is that our tenant only needs to irrigate one-third of the farm prior to this spring's cotton planting. Immediately below is a photograph of the beginning of that irrigation, taken on March 29. Due to the copious water volume available, and other conditions, the irrigation is proceeding apace and will be completed early enough to cause no delays in the cotton planting, despite the comparatively late starting date.

Pre-Plant Irrigation

Pima Price Promising

The price of Pima cotton continues to be over $1.00/pound for the higher grades. Unfortunately, our tenant's 2004 Pima cotton was damaged by the early rains and very little of it achieved the high grades usually seen. All of 2005's Pima cotton has again been placed in a sales pool, as that has proven to be a superior marketing tool compared to our tenant managing the sales himself. The expected price is very attractive. We can only wait and see how things turn out.

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

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