Crop Progress: Cotton Harvest Season Is Here

By Jim Steadman|September 13, 2021

While most of the U.S. cotton crop is moving into cut out and getting prepped for defoliation, cotton harvest for 2021 has officially kicked off. So says USDA in its Crop Progress report for the week ending September 12.

In its first harvest report of the season, USDA shows that 5% of the U.S. crop has already been harvested, thanks primarily, at this point, to Coastal and South Texas and Arizona.

Boll set is now reported in virtually all fields across the Cotton Belt – 96% as of this week – and open bolls are reported in 36% of the U.S. crop. That’s an increase of 7 percentage points of open bolls in the past week, but still 7 percentage points behind the 5-year average for the week. Biggest gains came from California (up 20 percentage points), South Carolina (up 19 points), Virginia (up 18 points), North Carolina (up 15 points), and Louisiana (up 13 points).

Crop condition improved slightly, with 64% of the crop rated good/excellent, 30% fair, and only 6% poor/very poor.