Effects of Quality Considerations and Climate/Weather Information on the Management and Profitability of Cotton Production in the Texas High Plains

Production function models for cotton lint yields, seed yields, turnout, and lint quality characteristics are developed for the Texas High Plains. They are used to evaluate the impacts of quality considerations and of climate/weather information on the management decisions and on the profitability and risk of irrigated cotton production systems. It is concluded that both quality considerations and improved climatic/weather information could have substantial effects on expected profitability and risk. These effects mainly occur because of changes in optimal variety selection and irrigation water use levels. Quality considerations in particular result in significantly lower irrigation water use levels regardless of the climate/weather information assumption, which has important scarce-resource use implications for the Texas High Plains.