A considerable portion of the state’s expected cotton acreage will not be planted this year primarily due to low prices and excessive rain, said a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service agronomist.

“Over 300,000 acres in the Rio Grande Valley and the Coastal Bend alone were not planted,” said Dr. Gaylon Morgan, AgriLife Extension state cotton specialist, College Station.

In March, the National Cotton Council was predicting a relatively large reduction in cotton acreage—14 percent—mainly because of low cotton prices. Morgan and Dr. John Robinson, AgriLife Extension economist, were predicting a more modest reduction at that time, perhaps 10 percent.

Then the unexpected happened, Morgan said. March, April and May brought excessive rains—breaking historical records in many areas—either preventing farmers from getting into fields in time to plant or drowning out cotton already planted.

But more recently, planting conditions improved, which has been beneficial to the Rolling Plains and High Plains to get much of their cotton planted, he said.

“The last 10 days, we made a lot of progress,” Morgan said. “The sun came out, and cotton was accumulating some good heat units. There’s still a lot of variability in crop growth stages in the much of South and East Texas, just because cotton had wet feet for quite a long time.”

The drier weather in the Blacklands and the Brazos Bottom and upper Gulf Coast area meant the crop was progressing “quite nicely, but was weeks behind average crop development,” Morgan said.

In the Texas High Plains, the planting situation was mixed, Morgan said. Final planting dates in the Panhandle, South Plains and Rolling Plains vary from May 31 to as late as June 20.

In the Northern Rolling Plains, the producers are taking full advantage of the weather and were pushing pretty hard, Morgan said. By best estimates, about 50 percent of that crop was in. In the Southern Rolling Plains, about 60 percent of the crop was planted.

Morgan expected Rolling Plains producers to get nearly all cotton planted—as long as there isn’t a major, unexpected turnaround in the weather.

In the Panhandle and South Plains, cool soil temperatures considerably delayed cotton plantings there, according to area agronomists.