A VOLATILE market sent cotton prices soaring early last week, with an expectation they’ll hold firm during the rest of ginning.
Cotton Compass director, Pete Johnson said future prices “rallied hard” on the back of a lack of supply.
Mr Johnson said there was a genuine tightness in supply globally from May to August, which some producers have been able to capitalise on.
Due to this lack of supply, cotton prices were up as high as $585 a bale during Monday and Tuesday last week for producers who could deliver bales before the end of July, Mr Johnson said.
Later cotton, delivered after July was discounted by $30/bale, selling at about $550/bale.
Cotton supply was tight after the US sold a large portion of their old crop via export, with no new cropping prospects until November.
Mr Johnson said to a large extent, Australian cotton was the most readily available for the second/third quarter time frame.
With a later harvest than expected, merchants have also had trouble filling their April/May shipments and are in desperate need of readily available cotton for immediate export.
Prices have come back from the highs of last week, sitting at about $550/bale.
Mr Johnson said he suspects the market would be well supported for the rest of the season though and prices would stay steady.
New season crop for 2018 is trading at between $530 to $540/bale.
“Growers with water have been looking closely at that,” Mr Johnson said.
Across the industry, Cotton Australia general manager, Michael Murray said picking was approximately 70 per cent complete, with the Namoi Valley sitting at about 80 pc complete and southern NSW halfway.
Apart from a few outstanding crops, Mr Murray said there had been no record yields this season which reflected the very hot, dry summer.
“It was a variable season of extremes, with record numbers of heat shock as well as record number of cold shocks,” he said.
Mr Murray said quality had been a mixed back across the industry- although generally, this year’s cotton quality hadn’t been as good as the last few seasons.
“That again has reflected the toughness of the season,” he said.
“There’s been no complete quality disasters reported.”
High prices have kept the season positive and Mr Murray said most valleys were in a far better water position than what they were at this time last year.
Producers, especially in southern NSW have already started getting their land prepared for the 2018 season.
“We’re expecting a huge year in Southern NSW with their high level of water availability,” Mr Murray said.
Mallawa yield solid despite dry season
DESPITE an extremely hot, dry season, the Byrnes family, “”Wirrillah”, Mallawa, are stripping promising yields off their irrigated cotton this season.
Bernie and Cherie Byrnes, with their daughters Kim, Anna and Prue, planted 260 hectares of irrigated Bollgard 3 cotton and 100 ha of dryland in the second week of October.
During the season, the Byrnes family received 170 milimetres of in crop rainfall and an extremely severe heat wave.
At first, they were irrigating every 10 days, but to keep up with the heat the Byrnes family started irrigating every seven days.
Kim said they did use more water this season than what they had allocated but it was necessary to produce a quality crop.
Tightening their irrigation runs meant more bolls were established on the plants’ top canopy, which helped boost yield.
In total, the Byrnes family irrigated 11 times, with their last water occurring in the middle of March.
The Byrnes’ dryland cotton, which was picked last week, averaged 8 bales/ha, which was significantly down compared to normal.
Miss Byrnes said they weren’t expecting great yields though due to the extensive heat wave and lack of in crop rainfall.
The irrigated crop is being picked now and has so far averaged 12.5 bales/ha which the family was very pleased with considering the season.
Usually, Mr Byrnes would look at selling some of his crop at the beginning of the season and would then wait to see what price does.
