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USA:Record cotton output predicted |
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2004-9-16
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U.S. will record the largest production of cotton in its history, even as the battered nation braved hurricanes for the past few months that may downsize the final figures.
A report Friday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects yields nationally at 758 pounds per acre, compared with 727 pounds per acre in 2003.
Texas, the nation''s top cotton producing state, is on pace to beat the state record by about 17 percent, the USDA said. Estimates project Texas producers will get 611 pounds of cotton per acre, compared with last year''s 478 pounds per acre.
But the estimate and how cotton futures will be affected, are muddled by uncertainty about potential damage done by hurricanes in the Southeast, said Carl Anderson, a cotton economist and professor at Texas A&M University.
Georgia could have lost as much as 200,000 bales to Hurricane Frances, said Roger Haldenby, spokesman for the Plains Cotton Growers, which serves a 41-county region that produces 60 percent of Texas'' crop.
The USDA projects Texas to produce 7 million bales, besting the 1949 mark of 6 million bales. Nationally, the forecast calls for about 21 million bales, an increase of about 4 percent over last year''s 18 million bales. 2001 brought the record nationally at 20.3 million bales.
"We have lots of good cotton everywhere I''ve looked this year. It''s exciting," said David Jones, who farms about 1,000 acres in Lubbock and Crosby counties in West Texas.
In the past six weeks, much of Texas has had spells of cooler than normal temperatures and overcast skies which have robbed plants of much needed heat. That can keep cotton bolls - which when ripe open to expose the white cotton lint - from fully maturing, which might diminish yields or lower quality.
On the South Plains, estimates call for 4.22 million bales to be harvested. That is nearly double the 2.15 million bales produced last year, when hail and other weather damage eliminated 1 million acres of produce. |
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