A lack of rain in early August will likely prevent local farmers from having as good of a cotton crop as once expected, Texas A&M Agri-Life Extension Agent Greg Gruben said.
Gruben said the beginning of the summer offered hope for a good crop, but a hot and dry end did not help.
“We really needed a good rain the first 15 days of August,” Gruben said. “A few places caught some of the scattered showers. But in terms of a county product, we would have had a wonderful cotton crop had we gotten a rain. We didn’t.”
Gruben said the recent rains will provide moisture which will help fill the bolls. However, he said the scattered showers resulted in some cotton fields receiving more moisture than others.
“My guess would be, as a county, it will be an average cotton crop,” Gruben said. “If you caught one of those showers in August, you’re probably in better shape than those who didn’t. This is two years in a row we have been set up real well heading to August and then we just don’t catch any rain.”
Gruben called it was a shame that rains did not come because there were farmers who were depending on a big crop to make up for the low price of cotton. He said the end result will depend on when winter hits Scurry County.
“What we do not need is an early freeze,” Gruben said. “We do not need to have a freeze in October, especially for the younger cotton. It appears to me that the younger cotton will do better. Climatologists say we are going to have a warmer fall. With as weird as the weather has been this year, it will be interesting.”
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