COTTON CULTIVATION AND PICKING

COTTON CULTIVATION :

COTTON CULTIVATION FLOWCHART

Land preparation:

By first ploughing-proir to seed sowing, and wait for first shower of rain. Second ploughing.

Making the ridges:

Turning over the ridges of previous year.

Cotton sowing:

In maharastra starts around june - july, while in punjab in may and in south as in october.

Chopping:

Thinning out operation is done in about 2 month's time. This takes care of the spacing of two plants.

Hoeing operation:

Carried out to clear off the wild plant. The surrounding ground of the plant is prepared to prevent unnecessary evaporation of moisture.

Floweing:

In 3 to 4 months the plant starts bearing numerous tiny, pinkish little white flowers.

Trimming of leaves:

After growing the plant height to one meter, the leaves on the lower side are removed to improve fibre quality in the pod.

Boll bursting:

White fluffy cotton is exposed to sun light.

Use of pesticides:

Chemicals are sprayed to protect the plant.

Exposure to sun light:

After the boll bursting, the cotton is required to exposed inthe bright sun shine. the cloudy and humid atmosphere not only the makes cotton prone the pest attack but deteriorates its quality.

COTTON PICKING:

Before picking the cotton balls are allowed to dry in a sunlight. Because of this fiber mature themselves by absorbing moisturement from seed. But due to wind there are chances of bolls or cotton may get contaminated with dust, sand, broken leaves, etc.

Hand picking

Mechanical Picking

Hand picking:

1) In india there are no larger cotton growing fields are available ,so the hand picking is popular in india.
2) It is labour intensive work.
3) Skillful workers are needed in case of fine varieties.
4) In india mostly labour pivking is used.
5) It is comparatively lower cost.
6) The labours are paid according to the quantity of cotton picked, so the labours are careless of their work.
7) It contains substantial and sizable proportion of trash
8) In Egypt and Sudan there are 10 to 12 district in which picking are made by hand to pick only mature bolls.
9) Good sorting of cotton is possible in hand picked cotton.
10) The production by employing labour vary from 250-300 lbs of seed cotton
( lbs means pounds)

Mechanical picking:

1) In foreign countries like USA and USSR cotton grown in vast fields ,so the hand picking is difficult due to this reasons the mechanical picking is used.
2) The use of mechanical picking is economical in large fields.
3) machine cannot be selective in choosing only ripe cotton.
4) The large amount of trash and foreign matter is associated in mechanical picking
5) When the cotton is matured at same time some balls are not matured then also picking is carried out. Because in late picking the quality of cotton is drops . Due to this reasons the unmatured balls also picked this is the biggest disadvantage of this picking system.
6) the production is 600-800 kg.

Published By:
Yash Beldar.
Dept. Of Textile Technlogy,
DKTE Textile and Engineering Institute.
yashbeldar1234@gmail.com