Much-improved rainfall conditions in most cotton growing areas look set to significantly bolster Namoi Cotton’s ginning and cottonseed business for 2016-17.
But too much wet weather may now be a risk in what has been the burgeoning southern NSW irrigated cotton sector.
“If it keeps raining like it has been, just about every week, it will be a challenge for farmers in the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee valleys to get crops established on time,” said Namoi Cotton chief executive officer, Jeremy Callachor.
After a season of limited irrigation water availability and few rainfall opportunities to promote dryland cotton plantings last summer, prospects have turned around rapidly in most regions in the past few months.
The coming Australian crop is now forecast to yield as likely to be as much as 3 million bales.
That’s up from 2.3m bales in 2015-16 when the area planted declined 50 per cent on the previous season, with the exception of Central Queensland and southern NSW.
Although its marketing business picked up about 2pc more of the total market share last year, Namoi handled only 540,000 bales last season - down from 1.12m the previous year.
The Wee Waa and Toowoomba-based co-op’s cottonseed business dropped to 158,000 tonnes, from 283,000t in 2014-15.
Mr Callachor said the outlook was much more optimistic given markets were also holding above the crucial $500 a bale level.
A good soil moisture profile now established in most areas was setting the scene for much larger planting prospects for irrigated crops - and dryland plantings if follow-up rain arrived in the next two months.
Dryland plantings may play a significant role in the size of the coming crop in northern NSW and the Darling Downs where major irrigation storage were still not receiving a lot of inflow, even though the cropping areas now generally had good soil moisture conditions.