High Temperatures Destroy Cotton Planting Dreams, Texas Encounters Another Dry Year

Thanks to the abundant rainfall from May to June, the drought in Texas, the main cotton producing area in the United States, has been fully alleviated during the planting period. Local cotton farmers were originally full of hope for this year’s cotton planting. But extremely limited rainfall and sustained high temperatures destroyed their dreams. During the cotton plant growth period, cotton farmers continue to fertilize and weed, doing their best to ensure the growth of the cotton plants, and look forward to rainfall. Unfortunately, there will be no significant rainfall in Texas after June.

This year, a small amount of cotton has experienced darkening and approaching brown in color, and cotton farmers have stated that even in 2011, when the drought was extremely severe, this situation did not occur. Local cotton farmers have been using irrigation water to alleviate the pressure of high temperatures, but dryland cotton fields do not have sufficient groundwater. The subsequent high temperature and strong winds have also caused many cotton bolls to fall off, and Texas production this year is not optimistic. It is reported that as of September 9th, the highest daytime temperature in the La Burke area of West Texas has exceeded 38 ℃ for 46 days.

According to the latest monitoring data on drought in cotton areas in the United States, as of September 12th, about 71% of Texas cotton areas were affected by the drought, which was basically the same as last week (71%). Among them, areas with extreme drought or above accounted for 19%, an increase of 3 percentage points compared to the previous week (16%). On September 13, 2022, during the same period last year, about 78% of the cotton areas in Texas were affected by drought, with extreme drought and above accounting for 4%. Although the distribution of drought in the western part of Texas, the main cotton producing region, is relatively mild compared to the same period last year, the deviation rate of cotton plants in Texas has reached 65%, which is the highest level in recent years.