March - like the weather predominantly has been since last Thanksgiving - came in wet on the Rolling Plains with both rain and snow the first day of the month.

By the end of February, the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service Cotton Program classing office in Abilene had graded some 1, 211,079 bales of cotton.

John Fox, area director, says of that, 85,316 bales had been classed for the season from East Texas, and 783,264 bales from his West Texas territory.

Oklahoma broke 300,000 bales as February ended, with some 300,944 bales having been classed from its 2009-crop cotton.

Fox reports Oklahoma having a strong cotton crop for last year's crop harvest, and the bale samples just keep rolling in.

The same is true for Kansas, he notes.

Some 41,555 bales of cotton had been classed from Kansas as March 2010 began.

Fox expects to be well into spring before the classing office finishes grading cotton.