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Pressured between the planting calendar and the delay in harvesting the soybean crop, the cotton planted area in Mato Grosso was smaller than the initial forecast, which was 12%. The drop in cultivated area was 17% smaller than in the last harvest.
The president of the Mato Grosso Association of Cotton Producers (Ampa), Paulo Aguiar, explained that excessive rain prevented the soybean harvest in the scheduled period. “We had several complications in planting cotton this year and that is why we will have an area of 950 thousand hectares of cotton for this harvest.”
As many areas of this harvest came very close to the limit period, the producer now needs to count on more rain at least until the first half of May for the cotton harvest. “It is still too early to say what the size of the harvest will be this year, but it is already possible to say that Mato Grosso will have a loss in productivity”, explained Aguiar.
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Another challenge for producers at this time is the development of pest management and control techniques in crops. According to the president of Ampa, controlling the boll weevil is always a difficulty to be faced.
“The other diseases, despite being present, we have already developed good management for them, we have managed to suppress them with ease, be they caterpillars, fungi, and other diseases, but the boll weevil is still a challenge for the producer. The pressure from last harvest to this harvest was great in relation to the boll weevil”, he explained.
Despite the current scenario, expectations for the next harvest are optimistic. For the president of Ampa, what happened with soy this year was an atypical condition. And that, with the recovery of the world economy, the demand for cotton will increase and the area planted in the next harvest will be the same as the previous one or a little larger.
Source: Notícias Agrícolas
