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Arkansas’ Planted Cotton Acreage Sinks to Record Low

2 min read

Arkansas’ cotton acres are expected to sink to below 200,000 acres due to weather and depressed prices. The previous record low is 310,000 acres, set in 2013.

In March, the USDA Prospective Plantings report estimated Arkansas’ cotton acreage at 230,000, a 31 percent decrease from 2014. What actually goes into the ground will be revealed in the June 30 Acreage report.

Bill Robertson, extension cotton agronomist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said a good indicator is the estimate from the Arkansas Boll Weevil Eradication Board, which had to make its own assessment of acres in its program. 

The director “told me this morning that what they have is 198,500 acres,” Robertson said in a news release.

Robertson said the reduction in the state’s cotton acreage isn’t concentrated in any single area and that rain kept farmers out of the fields this spring.

“At the beginning of May, we had a fifth of the crop planted and as of May 31, we hadn’t yet completed cotton planting,” said Scott Stiles, extension economist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. “Once you’re into June, odds are you’re not going to set any yield records. As of June 1, we still had 8 to 10 percent of our cotton left to plant. That amounted to 18,000 to 20,000 acres. I have doubts all of that was actually planted.”

Last year, the price per pound for cotton peaked at 84 cents in the first week of May 2014. This year, the highest trade during the month of May for the December 2015 contract was 66.99.

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