Ginning underway in southwest Oklahoma

Cotton ginning is well along in southwestern Oklahoma and just beginning farther north. At the Farmers Cooperative Gin at Carnegie, Okla., Jeannie Hileman, gin manager, reports 1,950 bales have been ginned and she is expecting a season run of approximately 15,000 bales.

"The grade and quality of the cotton we are getting was affected by the cold weather and the time required until we could get into the field to harvest it," she said.

On the other hand, she reports top yields for both irrigated and dryland cotton throughout their client service area. "We are getting reports of three bales per acre irrigated cotton and dryland cotton yielding two bales to the acre," she said.

"Around here in the Carnegie area, the last days of the growing season found the cotton hurt by too much rain. Farther west on I-40, in the Elk City area, the opposite effect took place with not enough rain. Even so, our clients in the Elk City region are seeing yields of dryland cotton in the 800 to 900 pounds per acre range."

Hileman's facility has a yard full of cotton modules waiting to be ginned and more being hauled in each day.

Farther north and east, Gene Overton, manager of the Bi-State Co-operative gin at Minco, Okla., says his season is just starting.

"We are just getting started ginning," he said. "We have ginned two bales today, but we have enough modules on the yard to keep us busy."

Overton believes the Minco gin will process approximately 3,000 bales in the 2009 season. He sees some quality and grade problems due to the recent cold, wet weather, but he is pleasantly surprised the quality is still good.

The Minco gin is owned by the Bi-State Cooperative headquartered by Blackwell, and processes cotton from both north central Oklahoma and southern Kansas.