GOOD prices and a promising end result have encouraged producers to lock in most of the cotton crop this season.
About 205,000 hectares of cotton have been planted in Australia this season, and due to dry weather in western Queensland and NSW, as well as Cyclone Marcia, the industry is still calculating the expected yields.
This year's crop is still expected to be the country's smallest cotton production since the 2009-10 season, where there only 1.5 million bales were produced.
Cotton Australia chief executive Adam Kay said NSW cotton crops looked great and farmers were excited by their yield potentials.
"The quality is expected to be excellent," he said.
With prices at a level producers would be happy with, Mr Kay said a lot of them would have already committed most of their crops through forward contracting.
He said the international cotton advisory committee had forecast for the first time in five seasons, demand for cotton would be greater than the supply.
"We'll eat into the global stock pile, which is good news," he said.
Picking has already started in Central Qld and was expected to move south in the coming month.
Mr Kay said it was too soon to tell whether there would be many downgrades in the crop, but at this stage they weren't expecting that would be the case.
Namoi Cotton trader Pedr Harvey said producers were being offered about $525 a bale, near the high for the season.
At the start of the season, prices were as low as $400/bale Mr Harvey said, so there had been a significant increase since planting in October.
Compared with last year, Mr Harvey said prices were similar, with this season only exceeding last year by a few dollars.
Cotton future prices were at similar levels at planting time, although Mr Harvey said the Australian dollar has dropped some US10 cents in that period, moving local prices higher.
Namoi Cotton general manager of grower service and marketing Dave Lindsay, Wee Waa, said producers were looking at getting back $30 to $40 a bale for seed, after ginning.
With good market demand, most producers had already forward sold the majority of their cotton seed, which Mr Lindsay said was the biggest reason prices were higher.
He said, although most irrigated cotton crops looked good, dryland in northern NSW was a mixed bag.
"It would just depend on rainfall and soil moisture at the time of planting."
Mr Lindsay said conditions for growing irrigated cotton had been ideal, with clear skies and not too-hot weather, although a lot of producers in the north had only grown 10 per cent of what they usually would.
"Pricing might be good but a lot of producers have planted minimal crop," he said.
"It's going to be a mixed bag when it comes to value."
Experimenting at Spring Ridge
FIRST-time cotton grower Frank Elsley, "Bundaleer", Spring Ridge, is expecting a relatively good cotton crop despite a "trial and error" season.
With his two sons, Thomas and William, Mr Elsley planted 90 hectares of Bollgard Sicot 71BRF Roundup Ready Flex on a reasonable soil profile on October 10.
Mr Elsley (pictured) said they would have liked a bit more moisture to plant on, but they were able to get their crop up without having to pre-water.
Cotton was chosen this season after facing an extremely dry season last year that knocked their usual corn crop around significantly.
Mr Elsley said cotton had been a better fit for the farm as watering the crop wasn't as demanding as corn, which had made production easier.
"With the cotton, it's given us a little more time to be able to water it properly," he said.
"The corn needed it right at the time you had to give it, it was very unforgiving."
Despite a few preparation mistakes, Mr Elsley said he was expecting a relatively good crop, expected to be picked in May.
The Elsleys were just about to finish their last watering and were lucky to have plenty of water to get through the season.
"We've been pretty happy with that side of it." .
For next year, he said he would drop his seeding rate back and was planning on cross ripping and then in-line ripping his paddocks to ease any compaction.