Not since 1918 has Georgia seen this much cotton in the
fields.
Experts with the University of Georgia Extension Service figure
this year’s Georgia harvest
will top 2 million 480-pound bales.
“It’s a sizable crop,” said Steve M. Brown, an extension cotton
specialist. “It’s the biggest we
have had in over 75 years, in terms of total bales.”
This year’s crop is up slightly from 1.94 million bales last
year. In 1990, Georgia farmers
picked just 405,000 bales on 350,000 acres.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that Georgia cotton
growers planted 1.375 million
acres this year. That’s down from 1.5 million acres last year.
“Last year the average yield was 625 pounds per acre,” Brown
said. “This year we’re likely to
make close to 700 pounds per acre.”
What made the difference? Rain.
“Last year we faced extreme drought in some areas of the state,”
Brown said. “This year we
had some drought, but we set a better crop earlier on. And we
had a little more scattered rain
than we had last year. Water is the biggest determining factor
in how much cotton we make.”
The Georgia cotton crop is usually harvested between mid-
September and mid-November.
Even though growers began picking cotton early this year,
experts predict they will keep
picking until Thanksgiving.
“We have an average of 45 percent of the crop harvested,” Brown
said. “Some areas are way
ahead of that, as high as 85 to 90 percent. And some areas are
behind.”
Again, rain is a factor. In this case, the harvest has been
hampered by heavy rains in late
August and early September.
“We also had more rain in October,” Brown said. “October is
usually our driest month, so the
weather created some real difficulties for us this year. But
we’re in high gear in most areas of
the state.”
Georgia ranks second nationally in cotton acreage behind Texas.
It ranks third, behind Texas
and California, in bale production.
The year’s cotton crop will go to market at about 72 cents per
pound. Economists with the
Extension Service say the crop contributes more than $691
million to Georgia growers and the
economy of Georgia.
