Wet weather delays cotton harvest

Hay producers were waiting for fields to dry out to either plant small grains or winter pasture or try to take one last cutting of hay. (Texas AgriLife Extension photo by Robert Burns) COLLEGE STATION - - In some areas, rains let up and fields dried, allowing agricultural producers to get back into fields for planting and harvesting, according to Texas AgriLife Extension Service personnel.

In many areas, producers were either waiting for fields to dry out to plant winter pasture or try to take one last cutting of hay.

In other areas, particularly the Rolling Plains, where many fields were saturated a couple of weeks ago, the cotton harvest just started up but was then postponed due to heavy dews and thick, damp fog, said Dr. Todd Baughman, AgriLife Extension agronomist based at Vernon.

“We had a real good week of weather up until the last two mornings,” Baughman said. “And we’ve had real foggy, damp weather. Normally it’ll come in an hour or two and burn off, but it’s been holding on for longer than that.”

In the Lubbock area, they hadn’t had the extremely wet and flooding conditions, but there was still enough rain to keep harvesters out of the fields, Baughman said.

The peanut harvest was pretty much completed in the Rolling Plains, he said.

One of the issues wet weather causes when the bolls are open is loss of color grade, he said. If wet weather delays harvesting long enough, it can also depreciate yields.

So far, yields have been “all over the board” for both cotton and peanuts, Baughman said.

“It was real frustrating until about a week ago,” Baughman said. “But if we can pass this little boggy period here, we’ll be in good shape.”

On any given year, from 500,000-750,000 acres of cotton are grown in the Texas Rolling Plains, according to Baughman.