Ike could further dampen Louisiana cotton harvest

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Latest forecasts show the massive expanse of Hurricane Ike could easily drench Louisiana cotton for a second time this month and third time this season, worsening an already crippled crop.

Current projections show Ike striking Galveston, Texas late Friday or early Saturday. But wind and rains from the massive storm extend for 900 miles and were expected to reach over 111 mph when Ike hits, the National Hurricane Center said on Friday.

The huge storm follows less than two weeks after Hurricane Gustav, which pounded New Orleans and Louisiana on September 1.

"It's not just the one storm. You can put cotton under three feet of water and if the boll isn't open or it dries out, it's not a problem. The problem is that Tropical Storm Fay put 6 to 20 inches (of rain) onto the crop. Then we got Gustav. Now comes Ike," said Ron Lawson, managing director at logicadvisors.com.

The NHC has spotted other disturbances in the Atlantic Ocean, including remnants of Tropical Storm Josephine.

"It's this wave after wave, every 5 to 10 days of rain. We've already seen some boll rot, root rot, boll shed. The (Louisiana) crop has some hurdles ahead of it," Lawson said.

John Robinson, associate professor and cotton expert at Texas A&M University pointed out that Gustav spent a lot of time spinning and dumping rain on northern Louisiana's cotton.

"When you get towards harvest, you don't want a bunch of rain. And they got a bunch. So did Arkansas and the Delta crop producing regions," he said.

The greater the number of open bolls, the bigger the impact from rain soaking the cotton and winds pulling bolls off their stalks and shredding the cotton inside, analysts said.

On Monday, USDA's cotton progress report said 65 percent of Louisiana's cotton bolls were open as of September 7, fewer than the 69 percent five-year average and up from 60 percent a week earlier, when Gustav pelted the Louisiana crop.

Robinson added that cotton growers were talking about boll rot before Gustav because of rains from Hurricane Fay.

"If they were worried about boll rot before, they have reason to be even more worried now. The longer it stays wet and sloppy, the boll rot issue will increase," said Robinson.

Preliminary estimates give some idea of Gustav's damage.

Lawson said he spoke with merchants and farmers in northern Louisiana, who had gotten 8 inches of rain in some areas.

"I'm talking to guys who think they lost about 200 lbs to the acre to Gustav in the hardest struck areas," said Lawson.

In its August 12 supply/demand report, USDA estimated an acre in Louisiana would yield an average 909 lbs of cotton, and cut that figure to 775 lbs on Friday. In 2007, Louisiana's average yield was over 1,000 lbs per acre.

A separate survey conducted by Louisiana State University's Agricultural Center saw Louisiana cotton's farm gate value sliding by about 47.32 percent or $112,270,675 after Gustav.

"Estimating damage to agricultural commodities due to weather is extremely difficult. A clearer picture will not likely be seen until harvest is complete," the report said.

Analysts also expect USDA will have to trim its total U.S. production estimates for the 2008/09 crop. On Friday, USDA increased its production forecast to 13.85 million 480-lb bales from 13.77 million bales in August, compared with 19.21 million bales in the 2007/08 U.S. crop year.

Some independent forecasts are using 13.5 million bales as a working output estimate that will likely be reduced again.

(Reporting by Carole Vaporean; Editing by Marguerita Choy)