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Itta Bena Mississippi | The disappearance of module builders and basket pickers in the Delta will probably take 10 years, but less than 5 for it to become majority. Grain prices have already put cotton on the back burner here. There are a lot of farmers here who won't go back to cotton unless there is a major price swing, there has been lots of grain storage put up, and lots of gins tore down. And a lot of 6 row basket pickers that have left the country. Most of my cotton machinery, and everyone else's went to Texas, so it will be longer before there's as great a change there. Used basket pickers are giving stripper growers an opportunity harvest faster, but the baler stripper will probably end that fad. The cost of upkeep on a picker will also hurry that along.
As gins have closed, it has kept our business more or less steady, but we have to travel further. I can't say that's how I like, but it's reality. On the farm, we picked 4600 acres and custom picked another 1600. And have been parked for 2 weeks.
As a private gin owner, my cotton is usually the last to be ginned. Round bales keep better in our climate, I don't have to have labor cleaning up behind the trucks and the gin doesn't have to run a lot more gas to dry wet cotton in cold weather like today. It pencils out on the farm, at the gin, and the trip in between.
Tom | |
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wrap issues JD7760
