Below-normal rainfall forecast for West Texas. Only a small portion of the dryland acreage on the High Plains has enough moisture to produce stands. Old-crop weekly export sales guesses reported from 70,000 to 100,000 bales.

Cotton futures finished mixed Wednesday, with only old-crop July modestly lower and the other contracts slightly higher.

Spot July closed down 44 points to 83.42 cents, just off the low of its 140-point range up 96 points at 84.82 cents to down 54 points at 83.32 cents. The low matched the low of April 26.

December settled up 24 points to 84.39 cents, in the lower quarter of its 122-point range from down 4 points at 84.11 to up 122 points at 85.37 cents. It traded within TuesdayΆs range.

Volume dipped to an estimated 20,100 lots from 29,710 lots the previous session when spreads totaled 9,220 lots or 31%, EFS 3,000 lots and EFP 36 lots. Options volume totaled 4,004 calls and 2,562 puts.

Though recent storms promised to reset the drought button for a large part of East Texas, the western half of the state likely will see below-normal precipitation from now through August, a Texas A&M University climatologist says in an Extension Service report.

Above-normal temperatures are expected for all the southern plains this summer, said John Nielsen-Gammon, state climatologist at College Station.

“The short-range and long-range outlooks are sort of opposites,” he said. “WeΆve got decent chances of rain in West Texas over the next week or two, while the Gulf Coast is going to stay fairly dry. But over the summer, the outlook from the Climate Prediction Center has the best chances for rain being along the Gulf Coast with drier conditions in West Texas.”

The entire state thus far has had below-normal rainfall for May, Nielsen-Gammon said. Parts of West Texas may “luck out” the last of May because of “fairly active, dry-like convections” during the rest of the month, he said.

But with generally dry subsoil conditions, cotton on the Texas High Plains will need timely growing season rainfall to make a dryland crop, even if sufficient moisture is received to produce stands.

Only a small portion of the regionΆs dryland acreage has sufficient moisture at the moment to get stands established. Many producers are planting their dryland acres anyhow because of insurance regulations, hoping for rain to bring the crop up to stands.

Crop insurance planting deadlines for cotton range from May 31 to June 10 on the High Plains and are June 20 for the adjoining Rolling Plains below the Caprock.

Heat and continued drought could put pressure on irrigation wells, most of which donΆt have enough capacity to keep up with summertime plant needs without supplemental rainfall.

As for June, the coastal regions of Texas may be drier, Nielsen-Gammon said.

“ItΆs because the Gulf of Mexico is so cool right now, but thatΆs just a hunch at this point,” he said.

Meanwhile, U.S. old-crop export sales expectations for the week ended May 16 appear to range mostly from around 70,000 to 100,000 running bales, against all-cotton sales the prior week of 82,900 bales. Shipments need to average roughly 230,600 running bales a week to achieve the USDA forecast. The report will be released at 7:30 a.m. CDT Thursday.

Futures open interest expanded 2,230 lots Tuesday to 190,994, with JulyΆs down 369 lots to 123,444 and DecemberΆs up 2,117 lots to 63,125.

Certificated stocks grew 2,762 bales to 509,472. There were 3,339 newly certified bales, 577 bales decertified and 1,578 bales awaiting review.

World values as measured by the Cotlook A Index dropped 150 points Wednesday morning to 91.90 cents. The index premium to TuesdayΆs July futures settlement widened 42 points to 8.04 cents.