Cotton futures rose on mounting signs of a global shortfall.

Cotton sales in India, the world’s second-biggest producer, have dropped in the season that started Oct. 1 as an extended monsoon delayed harvests, Cotton Corp. of India said. Prices in New York soared to a record last week. As of Oct. 15, warehouse inventories monitored by ICE Futures U.S. plunged to 11,182 bales from this year’s high of 1.081 million on June 2.

“There’s still undoubtedly a shortage of available cotton,” said Tom Reardon, the president of Delta Brokerage in New York. “There’s still a lot of unknown as far as the harvest in most of the world. There still can be quality issues.”

Cotton for December delivery rose 3.5 cents, or 3.2 percent, to settle at $1.1337 a pound at 2:30 p.m. on ICE Futures U.S. in New York. Earlier, the price declined as much as 1.7 percent. The fiber has jumped 50 percent in 2010.

In the previous session, the commodity dropped by the exchange’s limit of 5 cents after climbing to $1.198, the highest level since cotton started trading 140 years go.

The fiber “may have made a temporary top,” Reardon said. Prices are “very susceptible to exaggerated movement at the moment,” he said.