Scattered showers deposited meager rainfall on Texas High Plains. Weather trumps all concerns with pending production, analyst says.

Cotton futures set the range for the session in the wee hours of overnight dealings and traded warily to a slightly mixed close Tuesday.

Benchmark July closed down a modest 24 points to 87.15 cents, near the high of its 193-point range from up six points at 87.45 to down 187 points at 85.52 cents.

Maturing May, facing its last trading day on Wednesday, settled up 70 points to 86.01 cents, while new-crop December eked out a two-point gain to close at 85.97 cents.

Volume increased to an estimated 18,400 lots from 13,429 lots the previous session when spreads accounted for 2,932 lots or 22% and EFS totaled eight lots. Options volume totaled 6,217 calls and 3,802 puts.

Scattered showers overnight left only 0.02 to 0.18 of an inch of moisture at official reporting sites in the Lubbock area of the Texas High Plains, not nearly enough to provide significant improvement in conditions for planting.

A 20% chance for isolated to widely scattered thunderstorms was forecast for this afternoon along with a 10% chance on Thursday, 20% on Friday and a lingering slight chance on Saturday.

Drought worsened for the big cotton area coming into May, usually the second largest rainfall month behind June.

“Without question, this is one of the crop years when weather trumps all concerns with pending production,” Sharon Johnson, cotton specialist with Knight Futures in Atlanta, commented in a report.

Cold, wet conditions have retarded planting in the Delta and Southeast and drought combined with late spring freezes have compounded the crop outlook on the High Plains.

Johnson said many of the sources with whom she talked in the Delta believed the region would switch 200,000 corn acres to cotton, adding that it was more difficult to put a number on any switching in the Southeast. Most switching from corn in the Delta will go to soybeans, others say.

Some wheat acres lost to late freezes and dry weather on the High Plains may be replanted in cotton, but Johnson pointed out that how much is supposition and more of a guess than estimate at this point. In any case, replanting to cotton is believed likely to be relatively small.

Johnson estimated U.S. all-cotton plantings at 10.7 million acres, up from 10 million acres foreseen in USDAΆs March intentions survey, which will be used in the supply-demand report on Friday and again in June until the planted acreage figures become available in late June.

Given prevailing dryness and questionable long-term improvement, Johnson pegged abandonment at a hefty 20%, pulling the harvested acres down to 8.6 million. She put yields on the better remaining acres at 815 pounds, down 65 pounds from last year but up 20 pounds from the outlook estimate and compared with the five and 10-year averages of 814 and 818 pounds.

JohnsonΆs production estimate is 14.6 million bales, up 600,000 bales from USDAΆs February forecast and 134,000 from the May projection of Informa Economics, Memphis-based analytical firm.

Futures open interest gained 2,578 lots Monday to 170,635, with MayΆs down 35 lots to 54, JulyΆs up 2,035 lots to 113,779 and DecemberΆs up 554 lots to 54,028.

Certificated stocks declined 1,192 bales to 493,692. There were 179 newly certified bales, 1,371 bales decertified and 19,312 bales awaiting review.

World values as measured by the Cotlook A Index gained 130 points from Friday to 94.80 cents Tuesday morning. The index wasnΆt quoted Monday because of a United Kingdom holiday. Its premium to MondayΆs July futures settlement narrowed to 7.41 cents.