Cotton, peanuts see crop growth, yield challenges
by January 28, 2025 1:00 pm 171 views

Cotton and peanut acres surged in Arkansas during the 2024 growing season, but untimely rains likely cut into the quality of both crops, slightly reducing yields.
Growers harvested 640,000 acres of cotton, a 30,000-acre decrease from spring projections, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, or NASS.
It was an increase of 135,000 acres from the previous year. Those acres are projected to produce 1.6 million bales, according to NASS. That’s about 1,200 pounds per acre, a drop of about 95 pounds when compared to 2023. Final cotton numbers will be tallied later this spring.
Zachary Treadway, extension cotton and peanut agronomist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said conditions during planting were largely to blame. Spring time rains plagued farmers as the planting season got underway and impacted yields.
“I got here in May, when the weather was very wet, as it should be but there’s a limit,” Treadway said. “There was planting being abandoned, re-plants going in. Come June, July, it got hot and dry and that’s not really good for any crop.”
Throughout the spring and summer, weather conditions fluctuated wildly going from periods of intense heat to periods of intense rains and even cooler than average temperatures in mid-summer, according to the National Weather Service.
“We suffered through those dog days of June and July,” Treadway said. “It really wasn’t ideal. At the end of July, it stayed hot, but we got some timely rain before it dried up again in August. Then we had rains in September with those two back-to-back hurricanes.”
Treadway said that periodic rains near harvest likely impacted the quality of the crop, however.
“When those rains came in September, about half the state’s cotton crop had been defoliated,” he said. “So we had bolls that were open, and a lot of that fiber got rained on. It didn’t kill us — it’s not the worst thing in the world — but it’s not ideal. As long as that fiber didn’t get washed out of that boll, we’re still able to pick that cotton.”
Cotton production is expected to grow globally through August and July of 2025, according to the USDA. Global cotton production is expected to rise by 6% to 119.5 million bales through the middle of summer. It’s the largest increase in cotton production globally since the 2017-2018 growing period.
The U.S., China, and Australia are projected to increase cotton production while other countries such as Pakistan and India are expected to decrease production.
As of mid-January, cotton futures for May in the U.S. were trading at nearly 69-cents a pound, a drop from the 76-cents per pound the crop traded at during its heights of the 2023-2024 period, according to Market Watch.
Peanut farmers in Arkansas increased acres by more than 30% during the last growing season. Producers harvested 10,000 acres more than in 2023 and the USDA reported that the state had 44,000 acres of the legumes.
It’s believed this is a record for peanut production in the Natural State.
Given the highly specialized nature of peanut harvesting equipment, Treadway said, it’s likely the expansion in acreage does not represent new growers moving into the crop, but rather the same growers expanding their peanut efforts.
Northeast Arkansas is about as far north as most peanuts can be grown. The crop requires at least five months of warm weather and it needs sandy soil similar to cotton. Georgia, Texas, and Oklahoma are among the top peanut producing states. Peanut acres in Arkansas are typically concentrated in Randolph, Lawrence, Craighead, and Clay counties.
Peanuts had been grown in Arkansas for decades, but stopped in the 1970s. The crop was reintroduced in Northeast Arkansas in 2010 after disease and a lack of water ravaged multiple peanut producing states.
Prices for the legume were up slightly in December and if the price trends hold, it could encourage expanded acreage in 2025. Travis Faske, extension plant pathologist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, previously said that if prices are right, the state could have 50,000 acres or more of the crop in a single growing season.
Because the peanut and cotton growing seasons are similar, Treadway said, the same forces that robbed the state’s cotton growers of some of their yield likely impacted Arkansas peanuts as well.
Acres were up, but yields were down, NASS reported.
“USDA has us averaging about 5,300 pounds per acre,” he said. “Talking to growers, I think we’ll land around 5,200 pounds, which is about a 500-pound-per-acre decrease from last year. I think the decrease in both cotton and peanut yield per acre tie into the strange weather patterns we had this year,” Treadway said. “But with the increase in acres, we’re up 18% in terms of peanuts produced in the state.”