The National Cotton Council released its cotton planting intentions at its Annual Meeting on Friday, February 8.
This survey can be found at http://www.cotton.org/news/meetings/2013annual/plantin.cfm. Most commodity watchers had expected a drop in cotton acreage for 2013 because of the corn, soybean and wheat prices.
This survey projects that in 2013, 9.01 million acres of cotton will be planted in the United States. Of this amount, 8.8 million acres will be planted in upland cotton and the rest in the extra-long staple (ELS) often referred to as Egyptian, American Pima, or Sea Island cotton.
This amounts to a 15.0 percent decline in the U.S. cotton acreage.
While the drop was expected, there were surprises in the survey. If you look at the four regions, the Southeast region is expected to drop 18.5 percent, the MidSouth is expected to drop by 50.6 percent, the Southwest by 24.4 percent and the West by 12.2 percent.
In the Mid-South, the acreage will go to corn, soybeans and wheat. In the Southeast, more of the acreage will go to peanuts.
The MidSouth region consists of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee. Arkansas is expected to drop from 595,000 acres to 221,000 which is a 62.9 percent drop.
Louisiana is expected to drop from 230,000 acres to 144,000 which is a 37.3 percent drop. Mississippi will go from 475,000 to 199,000 acres, a drop of 58.1 percent.
Tennessee will go from 380,000 to 199,000 acres, a drop of 47.6 percent. I was pleasantly surprised that Missouri will have the least percentage drop of 31.6 percent. Our acreage will go from 350,000 to an expected 239,000 acres.
This is a lot less that the 500,000 acres planted in 2006. Yet a lot can happen prior to planting. Our projection was 400,000 last year and we were not able to get the fields planted due to the drought.
Also this planting intentions survey was conducted from mid-December through Mid-January. Since then, the soybean and corn prices have dropped and the price of cotton has gone up. As has been previously mentioned, China is in control of our prices. If they decided to release some of their stocks this could cause a significant drop in U.S. and world prices.
Based on the National Cotton Council Survey, it is estimated that the U.S. cotton crop would range from a low of 9.5 million bales to a high of 17.0 million bales.
Planted acres are just one part of this equation. As the Southwest has learned, weather is often the most significant component. They have had two drought years that has reduced their acreage and their yields.
A survey by the Cotton Incorporated Economics and Conservation Tillage Workgroup indicates that cotton producers are changing the way they farm in response to resistant weeds.
It has been established that weeds are not only becoming resistant to glyphosate or Roundup, but other chemistries as well.
This information is found in an article by Elton Robinson in the Delta Farm Press which can be found at http://deltafarmpress.com/management/resistant-weeds-changing-way-we-farm.
The list of glyphosate resistant weeds continues to grow. Marestail, johnsongrasss, palmer pigweed, waterhemp, common ragweed are part of the list.
This last year, Dr. Larry Steckel, weed scientist with the University of Tennessee in Jackson, confirmed that goosegrass is now on the list. This was in an area in Western Tennessee not far from the Mississippi River.
The results of the survey were presented at the 2013 Beltwide Cotton Conferences, in San Antonio, by James Larson, economics professor at the University of Tennessee.
Cotton Incorporated funded the study. Although the number of responses was small, the information gathered was probably useful in determining trends.
Seven of ten responders indicated that they had one or more resistant weeds. Marestail and pigweed were the most troublesome.
Ninety percent of the responders indicate that they are using had hoeing as part of their weed control strategy. This will remove the weeds prior to them going to seed which will reduce the population the following year. Other management tools are crop rotation, cover crops, and tillage.
One of the reasons that Roundup was so successful is because it really helped increase no-till or conservation tillage.
Reduced tillage is very important to overall conservation efforts. These practices reduce soil erosion and improve water quality. The committee is rightfully concerned with lesser acreages of reduced tillage.
Sixty-three percent of the respondents reported that their management practices were effective to very effective. However, the cost of their program was much more expensive as compared to the original Roundup Ready system.
The survey indicated that the use of Roundup Ready system was decreasing in favor of the Widestrike and Liberty-Link systems.
These surveys provide an insight in how farmers are responding to the market signals and how they are dealing with the resistant weeds.
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