Local area sees needed rainfall, but cotton crops hurt by dry summer

Two Washita County farmers who raise cotton say weather has been a significant factor in this year’s crop. They will begin harvesting their crop sometime in October.

Tracy Musick, a third generation cotton farmer, calls the crop average.

Chris Black describes it as hit and miss.

Musick and his two sons reside near Sentinel and most of the farming is done west of there, he said.

Black and his brother Nick raise cotton and wheat and have a cow-calf operation in the Dill City area.

Musick stated, “We’re really diversified. We raise wheat and alfalfa, too, and a little bit of corn. We have about 2,000 acres in cotton.”

Talking about last week’s rain, Musick said he received about 1.3 inches. “I live two miles from my dad and he got about 2 ½ inches,” he noted.

Black said the amounts of rain ranged from 1.25 to 2 inches. “The majority got on average 1.25 to 1.8, 1.9,” he added.

He thinks, “It will be beneficial for saving wheat but it’s not the savior for cotton. We needed it the first of August, late July during the cycle cotton is in.”

Black stated, “We had rainfall around July 20 but lacked sub-moisture due to not enough in the winter.”

Musick thinks the rain is “really too little, too late. It’s at least a week out before we get anymore,” he said just under a week ago.

“It’s struggled so long. It helped a little. It was great earlier. About a month ago I had a seed representative tell me we had some of the best dry land cotton in the southwest.”

“We’ll be real lucky if it makes enough to break even. We might have some that makes a bale per acre which is about 500 pounds per acre. I see most of it making 250-300 pounds per acre and it cost $200-$250 per acre to put a crop in,” he added.

“That would equate to $250 which would break even,” Musick said.

Black pointed to having to plant the cotton this year between May 18-20. “You have to have some moisture. August was so dry. The heat was so detrimental to this crop,” he believes.

“We had 105, 106, 108 degree temperatures. In 89 – 95 degree weather cotton thrives, but north of 95 the plant starts shutting down. But when it hits 100 degrees and above, that heat is pretty detrimental. We got some moisture but then it got dry in August,” he reiterated.

He said he was talking to a seed representative late last week and told him, “what I am seeing is hit and miss.” He indicated the seed rep agreed with his assessment.

Black believes, “This crop isn’t going to be very good overall.. I can’t say everything is going to be good or bad. We’ve seen some variability. When you went west, it was even different over there than here,” he noted.

He pointed to the environmental conditions, saying, “They really have played a significant role in what we are seeing for the outcome of this crop. It’s very patchy,” Black continued.

Musick posed the question, “who knows that the cotton price will be? It depends on what this rain does,” he commented. “As weather cools off, the bolls will open slower and get a little bigger. We’ll spray it. It’s hard to say when we will start harvesting it, probably latter part of October.”

Black said the price of December cotton was $64.84 and for March cotton was $65.82 as of less than a week ago. “That’s about 65 cents a pound for a bale of ginned cotton that weighs about 480 pounds. That’s the board price, not the cash price,” he explained.

He elaborated, saying, “the cotton is graded and the cash price is based on that grade in correlation with the board price.”

Black thinks harvesting of the crop he and his brother have raised will start between Oct. 1-15. He says weather conditions will determine and dictate how long it takes to harvest it. “Could be done by Thanksgiving. You like to be through by the first week of December, but you don’t know what the weather is going to be.”

Musick pointed out, “We are diversified. We farm about 14,000 acres and own about a third of it. We take four truck loads of wheat to the Braum’s facility at Minco each week.” He related that they also truck wheat to Texas and New Mexico as well.

Musick, sounding a little disgusted with the lack of moisture, said, “I’m ready to have 2020 be over with. There’s been nothing good about this year I can see. We had a really good stand of cotton early.

“At critical pointed when we needed the moisture, we couldn’t get it.”

Musick and his wife Ronda have two sons, Colt and Larame who work with him and they represent the third generation. They are 30 and 34, he said, and his father Jimmie, who is still involved with their operation, is the first generation.

Among his grandkids are two grandsons, 2 years old and also one 9 months. “Hopefully, they will be fourth generation,” he said.

“I’ve been doing this 40 years, since I was 18. My father had me driving a tractor at 6,” Musick continued.

Black sees this year’s cotton price as very average. “They are very average at best,” he stressed.

“With a hit or miss crop it’s not an ideal scenario.”

In addition to the cotton and wheat he and his younger brother Nick raise, and the cowcalf operation they run, “sometimes we do alfalfa. We haven’t done it within about a year. But we will have alfalfa next year,” he stated.

Chris, like his brothers Nick and Greg, grew up on the farm. Chris taught Vo-Ag and was a FFA advisor at the school he graduated from, Dill City-Burns Flat. He and his wife Britney have two daughters, Hadley and Emersen.

“Our father farmed all of his life until he died suddenly in 2009,” Chris said. “He raised cotton and had stocker cattle,” he added.

“In the spring of 2015, I left the teaching profession and joined Nick full time with farming,” Chris said. “I had worked part time on the farm while teaching.”