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Summer Storms Damage Southwest Georgia Cotton Crop

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Doerun, GA

Things can certainly happen in a blink of an eye, and cotton producers here in Southwest Georgia know that all too well after recent storms brought high winds, hail, pouring rains, and even tornadoes that hammered their crop. It’s something Camp Hand, Extension Cotton Agronomist with the University of Georgia, says is a bad situation as seedling cotton is a vulnerable crop, but believes there’s still hope.

“Cotton right now is anywhere from first bloom if you planted early to just coming out of the ground, so there’s a lot of variability in our crop and the impacts on the crop, kind of depend on what stage it’s in,” says Hand. “The field that we’re at today, it’s probably the second week of squaring, which is where I would imagine most of our crop is right now, and this field looks better than it did a few days ago. It’s starting to come out of it a little bit, the terminals were broken out of this cotton, which means it’s kind of got to divert resources back to vegetative growth to compensate for that loss, but that’s kind of the situation we’re in right now is waiting on sunshine.”

However, according to Hand, at this point, it’s just a waiting game, as they won’t know the full scope of the damage for a while.

“It’s hard to tell what the losses are going to be right now,” says Hand. “I will say that depending on the stage of crop could change things. Seedling cotton is a little more vulnerable to something like this and if the hail was a little bit worse in seedling cotton fields and you see some sticks or like it broke off everything and coddle leaves were gone, then that plant is dead, but these right here, you still see green leaves, it’s still, you know, photosynthesizing, still working, so this crop definitely has got a chance and a lot of potential, and of course, whether it’s seedling and stuff like that, it kind of changes what we think about what we need to do going forward, but right now, we’re just kind of in a tough spot.”

Tough spot indeed, as Hand says it’s too late to replant, and says that the only thing producers can really do is wait on sunshine and warmer weather.

“The thing about it is, if you’ve got seedling cotton that was killed pretty much, today is what, June twentieth I believe it is, so I wouldn’t replant today and you can’t, because it’s too wet. So either you’ve got to stick with what you’ve got, or we’ve got to change course, because it’s a little too late to replant cotton. In terms of trying to bring it out of this, what we really need is sunshine and ninety degree days and that’s not really in the forecast, but on a day like today, this is exactly what the crop needs. There’s nothing you can spray, nothing really you can do to kind of hasten the crop coming out of this,” says Hand.

By: John Holcomb

Annual Cotton Commission Meeting Updates Producers on Economic Outlook

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Tifton, GA

At the University of Georgia’s Tifton Conference Center, cotton producers, industry professionals, and experts recently gathered for their annual meeting – a time for producers to fellowship, get updates on the industry, and hear from experts before the 2023 season gets underway.

“It’s just an event to try and gather as many cotton producers from across the state as humanly possible in one place at one time to discuss what’s going on in the cotton industry for 2023 and beyond, as well as a time together to fellowship, meet with our extension specialists and extension agents to learn about new farming techniques and practices and technologies, as we make plans for 2023,” says Taylor Sills, Executive Director of the Georgia Cotton Commission. “We’re good at growing cotton here in Georgia, so they’re looking to find ways to pinch a penny without cutting a corner to continue to produce that sustainable, high quality crop as we move into the next year and beyond.”

Perhaps the most anticipated part of the meeting each year are the cotton production workshops where growers can hear from experts like Camp Hand, Extension Cotton Specialist with UGA, who spoke to producers about the upcoming year. Hand says growers need to be making the most of every dollar as input costs are still high and the price of cotton is down at least forty cents from where it was last year.

“Even though inputs were high, cotton prices were high,” says Hand. “Almost a year ago, the contract price of cotton was a dollar and thirty cents, which is really good. I mean it’s been a long time since it was over a dollar, but now we’re looking down the barrel of a situation where the contract price for December is about eighty-five, ninety cents maybe and input prices hadn’t gone down that much, and so margins are going to be a little thinner for our guys.”

According to Amanda Smith, a Senior Public Service Associate with UGA, one big concern for producers this year is the drastic increase in interest rates – an issue that Smith says could double interest expenses for producers.

“Last year, interest rates may have been around four, four and a half percent for some producers and this year, it may be between seven and nine percent, and so, their interest expense has increased significantly from last year, and so maybe they had interest expense of fifty thousand dollars on an operating note last year, this year, it could potentially be one hundred thousand dollars and that is dramatic thinking that they haven’t increased their operation size or their not farming more acres; it’s the same size of acres that they’re farming but a much bigger expense because of interest alone,” says Smith.

It’s because of that reason, Smith says growers, more importantly than ever before, need to know their cost of production for the year so they can make decisions that will best keep them financially sound.

“More important than ever is to know cost of production, and when producers know their cost of production, then they can have an idea of what their break-even price is, and so, if they know their break-even price and they can potentially market it above that break-even price, they know they’re covering their costs and gonna make some positive margin,” says Smith.

By: John Holcomb