Tatum Bessire does not sugarcoat his cotton’s hail damage. “It’s pretty ---- bad,” the O’Donnell farmer said, shaking his head. Producers at the Farmers Co-op Association of O’Donnell on Thursday morning estimated about 30 percent of the area’s cotton has already been harvested. Of the rest, they expect both yield and quality losses from a hailstorm the night before. The storm came along with a cold front that brought some heavy downpours across the South Plains. But the most intense severe weather — including golf ball-size hail driven by 60 mph winds — was focused mostly around the O’Donnell area, said Meteorologist Robert Barritt with the National Weather Service in Lubbock. Hail tends to be more common earlier in the growing season. While certainly no fun at that point either, the investments into a crop have been smaller. But with the crop days away from harvest, the loss is extra painful. “We got everything possible in it now — all we were waiting for was to pull it off the stalk,” Bessire said. “... It’s never a good time, and this is the worst possible time.” For South Plains cotton already harvested, a warmer-than-normal October helped quality. So did sunny skies; overcast days were rare that month. Harvest aids such as defoliants and boll-opening chemicals tend to prefer those conditions. “The above-average October temps were great,” said Seth Byrd, a cotton agronomist with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. “...We not only saw good maturing conditions, we saw really good conditions for defoliation and boll opening.” Now, the Lubbock branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s cotton-classing program is seeing some great crops. Samples are scoring low in a category that measures contamination with extraneous matter such as tiny leaf pieces. “It’s definitely looking good,” manager Danny Martinez said. “Overall, compared to last year, the cotton’s very clean.” Byrd is not surprised. “That’s a direct reflection of the environment we’ve been defoliating and harvesting in the last few weeks,” he said. Of course, those high grades could change when the classing office starts receiving rained-on cotton. Wet fields will delay harvest operations a few days. But what if the rain also triggers extra plant growth, when it’s no longer necessary? Well, that depends largely on how many harvest aid applications those crops have had, Byrd said. In fields with no applications yet, for example, more plant growth could mean more leaves to defoliate and a greater risk of contamination. Fields that have had their first of two applications could still see some terminal growth, though. Acreage with both applications might even have some juvenile regrowth, Byrd said, as he’s already seen on some stalks at his AgriLife research station. Looking for a bright side At a futures price of 68-72 cents per pound, the market looks OK — but not outstanding — Darren Hudson said. The Texas Tech agricultural economist points toward increased cotton use in China and elsewhere as encouraging signs. “Global use is going up, but global production is going up about the same pace,” he said. “The balance of use to supply has tipped a little in favor of higher prices, but those changes are small.” Still, when you recall the past couple years of barely break-even prices, it’s hard to complain. Hudson describes the general outlook as “neutral.” “We’re better than we have been,” he said. “We should view the current situation as positive compared to the last few years, both from a production standpoint and a price standpoint.” Steve Newsom just started harvesting his 3,000 cotton acres near Sundown. The Hockley Countian could view the rain as an inconvenience, but he’s too grateful for its long-term benefits. “It’s worrisome with all the bolls we have open, but we never, hardly ever, wanna turn down rain on the High Plains,” he said. Bessire, the O’Donnell farmer, poured 4 inches from his rain gauge Thursday morning. While he can’t do much about the hail that accompanied it, he still has his faith. “Just hope for the best,” he said. “It’s not in our hands — it’s up to the good Lord.” Source - http://lubbockonline.com/