Not much freeze-damaged wheat reported likely to be replanted to cotton in Texas. Weekly export sales estimates range mostly from 85,000 to 125,000 bales.

Cotton futures traded quietly within prior-day ranges, never making it to the plus side, and finished with a modest loss on light volume Wednesday.

Spot July settled off 47 points to 86.45 cents, in the upper half of its 128-point range from down three points at 86.89 cents to down 131 points at 85.61 cents. It closed three ticks below FridayΆs finish.

December closed down 67 points to 85.49 cents, in the middle of its 104-point range from down 16 points at 86 cents to down 120 points at 84.96 cents. Only 33 points have separated its high-low closes of the last four sessions.

Volume slowed to an estimated 15,300 lots from 18,099 lots the previous session when spreads totaled 3,708 lots and EFP 38 lots. Options volume totaled 6,745 calls and 6,367 puts.

Not much freeze-damaged wheat is likely to be replanted to cotton in Texas, says a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service specialist.

Gaylon Morgan, state cotton specialist at College Station, says in a crop report that cotton planting intentions may be affected but that the shift isnΆt expected to be significant on dryland wheat acres.

“Most of the shift will occur on irrigated wheat fields lost to late spring freezes in the Rolling Plains and northern High Plains,” he said. “The optimum planting window for cotton has passed in South Texas and the Blacklands.”

Cotton planting has just begun in the High and Rolling Plains, but other factors — not the least of which are precipitation expectations — will limit replanting to cotton, he said.

“Many of the production regions where wheat had severe damage are not major cotton acre regions, so we wonΆt see a big shift there,” Morgan said. “And the other factor is that if things remain dry, thereΆs not a lot of incentive for guys to go in with another crop.

“Finally, it will depend on the multi-dimensional aspects of crop insurance for both the wheat and cotton, which may be different for irrigated and dryland fields.”

But the major factor remains the weather, he said. With forecasts not predicting a turnaround of drought conditions anytime soon, the outlook is “pretty bleak for the southern High Plains where most of our cotton is grown,” the specialist said.

In the Rolling Plains, a rough estimate is that about 50% of the wheat was lost to late freezes, Morgan said. But with the region still suffering severe to exceptional drought, replanting wheat to cotton is really a viable option for only those producers with sufficient irrigation to make a cotton crop, he said. Those are relatively few in number.

The USDAΆs March prospective plantings report pegged upland intentions in Texas at 5.5 million acres, down 16% from 6.55 million acres last year. Texas accounted for 56% of the prospective U.S. upland acreage of 9.82 million and 55% of the all-cotton planting intentions.

Final tweaking of district estimates this month put the 2012-13 High Plains crop at 2,947,300 bales, up 61% from the historic drought-reduced output the prior year of 1,834,900 bales and 59% of the 5-million-bale Texas production.

An additional 531,300 bales produced in the adjoining Rolling Plains on the east, up from only 175,800 bales the year before, brought the total 2012-13 output in the West Texas Plains to 3,478,600 bales, 70% of the statewide output.

Meanwhile, trade estimates on U.S. old-crop export sales for the week ended May 9 range mostly from 85,000 to 125,000 bales, analysts said, compared with 118,600 bales the week before. The USDA report on weekly sales-shipments is to be released at 7:30 a.m. CDT Thursday.

Futures open interest expanded 1,308 lots Tuesday to 183,272, with JulyΆs up 1,416 lots to 121,236 and DecemberΆs down 139 lots to 58,740.

Certificated stocks grew 4,362 bales to 508,610. There were 4,370 newly certified bales, eight bales decertified and 4,777 bales awaiting review.

World values as measured by the Cotlook A Index gained 75 points Wednesday morning to 94 cents. The premium to TuesdayΆs July futures settlement narrowed 13 points to 7.08 cents.