Once a gin is shut down, it will likely never process cotton again, he said. With the continuing loss of California cotton production comes the shuttering of more gins-a huge concern for Isom. We’ll probably have to cut the (cotton) plants off and defoliate them and take what we can just so we can get across the acres.” “We have so much riding on this cotton being late-and our tomatoes as well. “I’m worried about the fall,” Barcellos said. Even if the crop is still growing and setting bolls in mid-October, he said he planned to sacrifice additional yield so they can harvest it before expected rains. The late cotton planting has Barcellos concerned about harvest. Instead, the family planted more processing tomatoes this season because of attractive pricing, and the crop could be planted later. In addition, deadline to plant the variety and take advantage of crop insurance is April 30. For every day past April 20 that pima is planted, Barcellos said a general rule of thumb predicts a 1% yield decrease. The calendar also weighed into the decision. ![]() “And with the price of pima, there wasn’t a lot of encouragement.” “Primarily, we just couldn’t get in on the ground because it was too wet and too cold,” Barcellos said. Without those factors, he said they probably would have had double the acreage. Because the variety requires a much longer growing season than upland cotton, Isom said it must be planted in late March or early April.Īaron Barcellos, a partner in the family-owned A-Bar Ag Enterprises in Fresno County, said cold, wet weather along with low prices prompted them to reduce pima plantings to about 750 acres this year. Of USDA’s California estimate, 70,000 acres were long-staple, premium pima varieties that typically net more than double the price of the shorter-staple upland or acala varieties grown mostly in Texas and the South.Ĭalifornia’s remaining 13,000 acres are upland varieties, according to the USDA report, and most of those are grown for planting seed because of the state’s near-ideal growing conditions.Ĭalifornia produces about 95% of the nation’s pima. The program recently released San Joaquin Valley 2023 planted cotton figures of 93,229 acres, with another 5,059 cotton acres in Riverside and Imperial counties. He pointed to California Department of Food and Agriculture pink bollworm program figures, which tend to be more accurate because the state maps and verifies each cotton field for assessment purposes. But I don’t know how that got down to (83,000 acres).” Tomato plantings also are up, and corn plantings are up, so I think a lot of the guys who would have planted cotton went with other crops. “I think everybody knew cotton acres were going to be down because of the (Tulare) lake flooding and the short planting window, especially for pima, which is what we mostly grow out here. ![]() “Quite honestly, it doesn’t make sense,” Isom said. ![]() Department of Agriculture acreage report, released on June 30, put plantings at 83,000 acres.ĬCGGA President and CEO Roger Isom acknowledged the organization’s survey isn’t perfect, but he said he couldn’t understand the large disparity. For the first time in a century, California cotton acreage will likely drop to fewer than 100,000 acres due in part to soggy ground at planting and better prices for competing crops.Ī recent ginner survey by the California Cotton Ginners and Growers Association estimated planted acres at 99,000, plus or minus 10%.
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