By Adam Russell

Texas cotton growers whose crops held on through recent weather could find strong prices during a summer of uncertainty, according to a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service expert.

John Robinson, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension cotton economist, Bryan-College Station, says the 2023 cotton season will be the most uncertain he has ever analyzed. This uncertainty will likely make prices volatile until the market has a good estimate of how many cotton bales will be produced.

The uncertainty stems from the Jekyll and Hyde weather across Texas – the nation’s top cotton-producing state – that has left early USDA planting estimates in shambles, Robinson says.

Texas had been mired in drought, and producers were not hopeful entering the warm-season crop planting period, which started in South Texas in February and March and ends in mid-June in the Panhandle.

Producers became more optimistic after cotton was planted in South Texas, spring rains benefited the young crop and forecasts turned away from a La Niña pattern. But widespread rains that started around May 1 and consistently fell over the next month prevented many producers from the South Plains to Panhandle from planting cotton fields.