NEW YORK, April 4 (Reuters) - U.S. cotton futures closed
flat on Monday as investors awaited a supply/demand report from
the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but new-crop contracts rose
3 percent on buying related to spreads.

The key May cotton contract on ICE Futures U.S.
ended unchanged at $1.9555 per lb, dealing from $1.9221 to
$1.9649. Last week, cotton fell 4.4 percent.

The new-crop December contract gained 3.91 cents to
end at $1.3609.

Independent cotton analyst Mike Stevens of Louisiana
described Monday's business as 'push and pull' between support
from new-crop December and weakness in old-crop contracts such
as May and July.

About 60 to 70 percent of the day's volume was related to
spread trading between May and December as well as between July
and December, Stevens said.

Volume traded in the cotton market totaled around 17,000
lots, about one-third under the 30-day norm and sharply below
Friday's level, Thomson Reuters preliminary data showed.

Volume traded on Friday reached 27,789 lots, ICE Futures
U.S. data showed.

The level of investor interest hit a 6-1/2-week high as
open interest in cotton futures stood at 192,446 lots as of
April 1, according to ICE Futures U.S. figures.

The USDA's potential plantings forecast of U.S. 2011 cotton
sowings, a much lower-than-expected 12.566 million acres (5.083
million hectares), should do little to quell a two-year rally
in cotton futures, analysts said.

They said the main concern about U.S. cotton acreage was a
dry spell in the top growing area of Texas, which is expected
to plant about half of the U.S. cotton crop.

Dealers said the market would now turn its attention to the
USDA's monthly supply/demand report to check for any changes in
cotton consumption for the rest of the 2010/11 season.