"All in all, the cotton that has been harvested is good, high-quality cotton and we're making much better yields than in the past," Robert Lemon, an extension cotton specialist, wrote in a report released late Tuesday by Texas A&M University.
"Cool temperatures are affecting the growth of cotton on the High Plains, and that's the big story right now. There's a wonderful crop on the plant, we just need the warm weather to finish it out," he said.
Brent Bean, an agronomist in Amarillo, said the cotton season this year has seen an "exceptionally cool summer" and the plants need some hot weather to aid quality and yields.
"In order for a cotton boll to fill and have the fibre of cotton mature, it needs a certain amount of time and heat," he explained.
The question facing the cotton crop in the Panhandle section of the Lone Star State is whether it gets enough heat so that cotton bolls in the plant can mature before any killing frost hits, the agronomists said.
The harvest is already under way in South Texas and should be winding down in a few weeks, agronomists in the area said.
"Harvest went really well, (we) got just a great crop," said Brad Cowan, an extension agent in Hidalgo county. "This year's harvest is quite larger than last year's, something that could be because of all the early summer rain we got."
Texas planted about six million acres to cotton in 2004. According to the US Department of Agriculture's annual plantings report, a total of 13.947 million acres were planted to cotton this year.