Tue., November 10, 2009 1:00pm (EST)

Cotton Farmers Watch Ida

By Josephine Bennett

Updated: 4 years ago

MACON, Ga.  —   Georgia's cotton farmers are hoping rains from a former hurricane don't ruin their crops. For the state's cotton farmers Ida could not have come at a worse time. In many places cotton is not quite ready to pick, but the fields are full of promise. This could be the best crop some farmers have seen in years.

Scott Vann has 12-hundred acres of cotton planted on his farm in Southwest Georgia's Mitchell County. He stayed in the fields until 9 o'clock Monday night harvesting what he could before the rains came.

"Lots of rain you can have a, cause damage on your grades which means less money and then plus physical damage where the lint is actually knocked out of the burr and it falls on the ground and cannot be harvested."

Vann says he could lose as much as 150-dollars an acre. According to the University of Georgia cotton has a statewide economic impact of 3-billion dollars a year.