By Shelby Shank
Field Editor

U.S. cotton farmers are forecast to produce 15.5 million bales this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) May World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report.

The bale estimate is based on the 11.26 million planted acres indicated in USDA’s March Prospective Plantings report. Harvested acres are expected to increase 1.4 million to 8.71 million acres.

Several areas received rain in recent weeks, but it’s still too soon to determine if it has impacted farmers’ planting decisions, said Dr. John Robinson, professor and Extension Specialist for cotton marketing.

“I think those decisions are made prior, and in some part of Texas, obviously down south, a whole lot prior,” Robinson said in an interview with the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network. “If you go back a month or two or three, as dry as it was before these rains, that probably influenced some cotton plantings because cotton tends to do better generally in dry conditions. That may have influenced some people to hang onto their level of cotton planting.”

Robinson noted a final planted acreage report will be released at the end of June.

“It’s not finalized, but the implication of planting 11.26 million kind of takes the edge of concern about a short crop,” Robinson said. “That’s another way of saying it takes the edge off higher price, extreme price volatility, because we’re afraid of having a very tight production outcome and ending stocks outcome.”

Exports are also expected to increase, up 900,000 bales as world trade rebounds, and U.S. mill use is expected to rise 100,000 bales. At 3.3 million bales, 2023/24 U.S. ending stocks are projected 200,000 bales lower than the previous year.

While some farmers are holding onto their cotton planting, others are looking for alternatives.

“On the other hand, I did hear a lot from down south. I heard people say, ’Yeah, probably planted more grain sorghum than my normal rotation.’ And that was just a price response. And up north, I heard people talking about hanging onto their wheat cover crops or insuring their small grain cover crops as forages under that new forage insurance program,” Robinson said. “All the talk, for those who were willing to talk in a group setting, along the lines of, what can I do to plant something else besides cotton? And all that was a response to 80 cent cotton.”

With December cotton at 82 cents, Robinson estimates prices to increase into the upper eighties.

“There are things that can happen that’ll affect the production, whittle away at the potential production, tighten it up a little bit. And in the middle of the growing season, those kinds of things tend to attract speculative buying,” Robinson said. “It wouldn’t take that much to get us up to 88 cents.”

But with continued rainfall in the Panhandle and timely rains during the flowering stage of the crop, prices could drop below 80 cents and into the mid-seventies.

“In three weeks from now, a month from now, without those rains, it makes a huge difference. I think we do, obviously, have enough moisture now to have a crop that’s somewhat larger than what we saw last year, and I would say a little larger than what USDA is currently predicting,” Dr. O.A. Cleveland, professor emeritus at Mississippi State University, said. “But if the moisture comes, I think we’ll see a larger crop estimate from USDA in the June report and certainly in the July report, assuming that West Texas or the Texas Plains receive more tuned to a normal rainfall pattern in May and June.”

Click here for the full May WASDE report.