Brazilian soy farmers planting cotton during the interharvest will need to gather the biggest ever crop of the fiber with clockwork-like efficiency this year to avoid disrupting the harvests that will follow. Soy farmers usually plant corn in their soy fields once the oilseed crop has been gathered, but surging cotton prices, which have doubled in six months have persuaded many to switch to the lint for this year's interharvest period.
Output is set to leap 77 percent to 1.95 million tonnes from last year's 1.1 million bags as a result, as soy growers and farmers who grow only cotton, raise output. But some could struggle to harvest with limited machines to go round. "With a large area planted, the worst problem - though I don't think it will happen - is that there wouldn't be enough machines," said Decio Tocantins, director of the cotton grower association of Mato Grosso, the top cotton and soy state.
"(Growers) will look for machines and cooperate with their neighbours to find a way," he said. Harvesting in Mato Grosso is expected to take place between early June and mid-August. Cotton is also grown in Brazil's north-east, but as the main crop rather than a secondary one, meaning growers there will be free of these time pressures.
"It's going to be challenging ... You only have a certain amount of time to harvest cotton, but the farmer knows this," Tocantins said. Cotton can only be picked from about 9 am to 5 pm as outside of these hours lower temperatures bring condensation that can cause the cotton to jam up in harvesters' spindles, precluding working into the night to make faster progress.
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