Combines are rolling across the country, with good harvest progress showing in this week’s crop report.
As one ag meteorologist says, it was going “pretty doggone nice,” but now, pace is slowing down due to we weather.
According to Ryan Martin, “We opened in September with several four or five day stretches of very good harvest weather. We’re since now seeing a pattern change where we’re getting a system, or in some cases, a couple of waves in a system, every four or five days or so. So, we’re cutting our rain-free windows down to maybe two or three, and then, adding insult to injury on that, we have a scenario where, with cooler temperatures— our evaporation rates are not cutting muster at this point. And I think that we’re going to be seeing that continue through the end of October and into early November.”
Martin expects the rest of harvest to be a drawn out process.
Cotton ginning is also slowing down compared to last year.
The USDA says that more than a million bales of upland cotton have been ginned since October 15th. That is down 230,000 from this time last year.
The U.S. is set to produce a smaller crop this year due to lower yield numbers, late development, and a slower harvest pace.
The next cotton update from the agency will be out November 9th.
