NEW YORK, May 10 (Reuters) - U.S. cotton futures ended
higher on Tuesday on investor short-covering as the trade
braced for release of a key government crop report on
Wednesday, analysts said.

The U.S. Agriculture Department's monthly supply/demand
report is due out tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT). It will
contain the first estimate of global supply/demand conditions
in the upcoming 2011/12 marketing year (August/July).

(USDA crop report microsite: http://r.reuters.com/fev49r)

'Let's see the report,' said Keith Brown, president of
commodity firm Keith Brown and Co in Moultrie, Georgia.

The key July cotton contract on ICE Futures U.S.
rose the 6.00-cent limit to settle at $1.514 per lb, with the
day's low at $1.43.

The new-crop December cotton futures went up 2.14
cents to close at $1.2592 cents per lb.

Volume traded stood at almost 17,700 lots, about a fifth
below the two-thirds below the 30-day norm, Thomson Reuters
preliminary data showed.

July shot up on switch trade and short-covering, running
higher because it was heavily oversold, dealers sad. The rest
of the board posted much more modest increases.

Analysts said the USDA report will be the starting point
for the market in gauging what kind of world supplies,
consumption and ending stocks will be available in 2011/12.

The USDA data will not be based on detailed surveys of
cotton crops in the U.S. and other northern hemisphere
producers like China.

Such detailed calculations will only become available in
the August supply data of the USDA.

The level of investor interest in the cotton market
remained weak. Open interest in the cotton market rose to
148,600 lots as of May 9, up from the 147,578 lots on May 6,
which is the lowest level since October 2009, data from ICE
Futures U.S. showed.

Volume traded in the cotton market was at 12,006 lots as of
May 9, versus the previous tally of 14,795 lots, exchange data
reported.