Sunny skies helped bleach fiber in the Southeast. Many Delta producers completed the harvest. Oklahoma crop quantity and quality liked. Some gins expanded shifts in the Texas Plains. California growers shredded stalks.

Cotton futures, which had neared a downtrend line off the August high, skidded to triple-digit losses Monday amid mounting harvest pressure under open weather across key areas of the U.S. belt.

December closed down 196 points to 68.86 cents, near the low of its 211-point range from up three ticks at 70.85 cents to down 208 points at 68.74 cents, a four-session low settlement. It still gained 78 points or 1.2% for the month.

March shed 189 points to settle at 69.37 cents, while December 2017 lost 74 points to close at 69.16 cents.

Volume quickened as the day progressed and reached an estimated 33,424 lots, up from 26,378 lots the previous session when spreads accounted for 11,501 lots or 44%. Options volume totaled 3,896 calls and 1,436 puts.

Clear to partly cloudy skies prevailed across the entire Southeast last week as moderate to exceptional drought conditions expanded throughout Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and portions of western and northern Georgia.

Lack of soil moisture has resulted in reduced yields in some fields in Alabama, a weekly cotton review from USDAΆs Agricultural Marketing Service indicated Friday. Harvesting advanced without interruption.

Sunny weather, which has prevailed since Hurricane Matthew, helped to bleach out fiber in the Upper Southeast. Defoliated fields suffered heavier yield losses because lint was blown out of bolls, some reports indicated. Producers in eastern North Carolina resumed harvesting as flood waters receded.

Fair weather prevailed in the North Delta where many producers have completed harvesting. Ginning of backlogs of modules continued without interruption. Good to excellent yields continued to be reported off irrigated cotton.

Harvesting was rapidly winding down in the South Delta and ginning progressed at a steady pace. Most reported yields remained above average, though most dryland cotton yields were below average.

Active harvesting neared completion in eastern Texas, while producers prepared land for the next crops in southern areas and the Coastal Bend. Harvesting was underway in eastern Kansas and producers in western Kansas had begun to apply harvest aids.

Dryland yields of 800 to 900 pounds per acre and irrigated yields of 1,000 pounds were reported in Oklahoma. Producers and industry people were encouraged with crop quantity and quality.

Unseasonably warm, open weather was near ideal for harvesting in the West Texas Plains, though humid conditions slowed operations, especially until after morning dews dried. Harvest-aid chemicals worked well and some were in short supply. More than half the gins had initiated operations and some were running two and three shifts.

Harvesting had moved slightly above the five-year average in the Desert Southwest. The crop in New Mexico was rated mostly poor to good. Producers shredded stalks in California in compliance with the pink bollworm program.

Futures open interest expanded 1,805 lots Friday to 262,059, with DecemberΆs down 797 lots to 136,997 and MarchΆs up 2,030 lots to 86,047. Cert stocks grew 2,996 bales to 30,885. There were 3,405 newly certified bales and 439 bales decertified.