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Australia's cotton harvest this year is set to be at least 1.4 million bales, more than double last season's harvest and the best crop in four years, the country's top cotton processor said on Thursday. New seed varieties had lifted quality and yield, with some growers harvesting up to 14 bales per hectare from irrigated cotton compared with 10 bales per hectare for dryland cotton, said Bob Bell, chief executive of Namoi Cotton Co-operative Ltd.
"Early yields are beyond expectations and the quality coming through looks to be fine, which is critical in a tough world," Bell said. "There could be some upside to the 1.4 million bales because of the yields." Most crops in Australia's cotton belt, which runs from northern New South Wales state into the northern tropical state of Queensland, are irrigated, with the total crop size dependent on water availability.
Bell said about 30 percent of Queenland's crop had been harvested and about 20 percent of the New South Wales crop. The latest crop will still be about half the record 2.9 million bale crop harvested in 2004/05, due to shortages of water following a once-in-a-lifetime drought.
"In general farmers are looking at a more attractive cotton crop this year, particularly when you compare it with the very short water allocations in recent years," said Luke Mathews, an agricultural commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Better water availability allowed farmers to plant 164,000 hectares this season compared with 63,000 hectares the previous season when drought reduced supplies of irrigation water to a trickle.

Copyright Reuters, 2009

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