Lower overall cotton prices, crop competition, and continued drought are key contributors to reduced acreage in the western section of the Cotton Belt.

Most of this year’s Arizona cotton acreage is in central and eastern Arizona, with reduced acreage planted in western Arizona including Yuma, La Paz, and Mohave counties which border California.

Over the last two decades plus (1993-2015), cotton acreage in the Grand Canyon State has steadily decreased – from 400,000 to nearly 100,000 acres. There were several short-term acreage revivals in plantings during this time, including several years ago when Upland and Pima cotton prices rebounded with a lion’s roar.

Liesner showed a PowerPoint slide which illustrated the overall acreage downturn.

“I hope that we can find a way to turn this around in the future,” the ACPC director said as people’s heads nodded up and down. “If acres continue to fall, there is growing concern over the impact this could have on the cotton industry’s infrastructure.”

This year’s 2015 California cotton acreage in estimated at about 167,000 acres, the lowest level since 1929 prior to the stock market crash.

For 2015, Arizona acreage by type includes: 80,520 acres of Bt cotton, 2,440 acres of non-Bt short staple, and 16,605 acres of Pima long staple. Overall, Bt acreage is down 43 percent from last year and Pima average rose 6 percent.

Last year, Pima plantings soared 800 percent, compared to 2013.

Accordingly, Liesner says this year’s cotton acres have fewer pink bollworm (PBW) and boll weevil ACPC-placed traps - 1,391 PBW traps this year compared to 2,654 last year; and 996 boll weevil traps this year and almost 1,600 last year.