Rain slows cotton picking parade

Wet weather has delayed this year’s cotton harvest, with pickers still trawling through the fields at a time when the season would normally be wrapping up.

“The rain brought us to a halt pretty much, and these pickers can get back in a paddock a lot quicker than the old conventionals,” said Luke Humphries, a cotton-picking contractor based in Wee Waa.

“The season has been very long; it’s dragging out but we’re slowly getting through it now.

“We kicked off around the last week of April and we’d probably done about 400 hectares when we had a bit of rain and then we went again, and then it rained again – we had that big amount, about 70mm of rain, and that pulled us up for a couple of weeks and now we’re probably about halfway through, at least,” said Mr Humphries who picks cotton around the North West region.

“This will be my 13th season and every season is different – 2010 was a massive dryland year for cotton but through 2014 and 2015 it got dry and 2016 it came good again and then pretty much drought 2018, 2019 and 2020.”

Mr Humphries said despite the delays and work pressures, he’d take the rain over dust storms any day, like most in the agricultural industry.

“It fills the dams up,” he said.

“The more water; the more cotton, so it’s better for everyone.

“It has been up and down, it’s just been one of those seasons this year – ‘when you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go’ to try and get it off as soon as you can get a window to get back in the paddock.

“But it’s been that wet you couldn’t even get in the paddock, you couldn’t even walk in the paddock it was that drenched – the ground was going green, there was green moss on the ground – that’s how wet it got.”

Cotton can stay on the plant for months, however, the quality of the crop can be impacted by water damage and discolouration the longer it does.

The crops that weren’t able to be picked until after the rain are likely to have suffered some discounts due to discolouration.

Cotton likes good sunny, dry, and warm weather so its bols can crack into their white fluffy glory, and grow big yields.

Mr Humphries said he was surprised some cotton wasn’t grey and discoloured.

“Usually, the rain discolours it all but this year the cotton still looks pretty good, some cotton has had up to 100 mm on it and still looks fine.

“But the cotton that was really right for picking just before the rain, well, some people have lost a bale to the hectare – it is a big loss,” said Mr Humphries.

“Some people have lost up to a bale to the hectare to the ground from rain and wind depending how ripe the cotton was when we had up to 70 mils of rain over a few days and some have lost as much as two bales to the hectare,” added Mr Humprhies.