LITTLE ROCK—Arkansas cotton growers had to wait to plant this year because of the cool and rainy spring. Growers are watching the weather and keeping an eye out for pests as they hope the crop will mature enough for a good harvest.

“I still think we can make a good crop. There’s just a lot of factors playing in,” cotton expert Tom Barber of the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service said.

Growers have generally not had to spray for insects yet this season but there is the threat of late-season pests. There is also the worry about September weather.

“We’re going to need a good September to help mature the upper portion of the crop out,” Barber said.

Some cotton-growing areas of the state are in need of rain now; rainfall has not been consistent over many growing areas, Barber said.

Arkansas farmers planted about 700,000 acres of cotton this year, down from 860,000 acres last year and from 1.17 million acres in 2006, a two-year drop of about 40 percent. The U.S. Agriculture Department had forecast 650,000 acres would be planted, but the price ticked upward prior to planting time and more Arkansas growers than expected went with cotton.

The dropoff in Arkansas cotton acreage is not nearly as stark as in neighboring Mississippi.

In Leland, Miss., a century-old cotton warehouse, Leland Compress, is to shut its doors on Aug 1. Mississippi farmers planted about 420,000 acres of cotton this year, down from 660,000 acres last year and 1.23 million acres in 2006, a 70 percent drop over two years.

Extension service agricultural economist Scott Stiles said if cotton prices don’t catch up with soybeans, rice and corn, more growers will switch from cotton.

“As far as cotton infrastructure (being shuttered), we’ll see a lot of that (in Arkansas) if cotton prices don’t recover next year. It depends on how long the downturn in cotton lasts. If we go two to three years without competitive prices, we’re doing to see this infrastructure diminish,” Stiles said.

But Stiles said the drop in production this year is bringing cotton inventories down, which bodes well for growers in 2009.

“Your common sense would tell you that if growers don’t grow cotton, inventories will fall to a level that will get the price back up,” he said.

Barber said some Arkansas growers may be more willing to stick it out because most warehouses and gins are owned by farmers who want to protect their investment. Some gins have been taken out of service for the season but could open again next year.

The labor involved in producing cotton is lost along with any drops in acreage, Barber said, noting that cotton requires more work in the field, and then at gins and warehouses, which is a boost to the economy in farm towns.

“If corn and bean prices stay at the level they are right now, it’s going to be hard (for more farmers to not switch),” Barber said. “It’s a lot easier to grow these crops (corn and soybeans) and people are going to do that if they can.”

Arkansas has 450,000 acres of corn planted, a 24 percent drop from 590,000 acres last year. Growers planted 3.15 million acres of soybeans, up 13 percent from 2.79 acres in 2007.