How to build a cotton production model in the Yangtze River Basin? The Ministry of Agriculture is exploring

Due to the growth of cotton consumption within the Yangtze River Basin, both the local cotton purchase volume and export volume have shown a declining trend. However, the cotton production efficiency in this region is higher than the national average, and the conditions for developing cotton production are favorable. In addition, the Yangtze River Basin is also an important textile industry base in China, and developing cotton production can provide sufficient raw materials for the textile industry.

The Yangtze River Basin is one of China's three major high-quality cotton regions, but the mechanization rate of cotton production is only about 20%. Combined with the shortage of rural labor, cotton production in the Yangtze River Basin is struggling. In order to accelerate the improvement of the mechanization level of cotton production, the Ministry of Agriculture has focused on implementing the "National Cotton Production Full-Process Mechanization Technology Demonstration Project" in Zhijiang City, Hubei Province, and other places, comprehensively exploring the mechanized cotton production model in China's Yangtze River Basin.

The Yangtze River Basin has a humid and rainy climate, and the cotton planting area is small and scattered, all of which pose considerable challenges to the mechanization of cotton production. According to Liu Hong'an, director of the Zhijiang City Agricultural Machinery Bureau, at the very beginning of the project, the agricultural machinery department of Hubei Province organized experts to conduct multiple surveys and experiments, and finally selected two varieties, Zhongnongmian 63 and Sumian 24, as the project experimental varieties. On May 24-25, the fields were mechanically rotary-tilled, using a shallow rotary method with 3 passes. On May 25, the first batch of demonstration plots was mechanically sown, and on June 5, the second batch of demonstration plots was mechanically sown. During the mechanical sowing of cotton, the requirements for machine-picked cotton were strictly followed, with a plant spacing of 19cm and a row spacing of 76cm, ensuring that the plant and row spacing were consistent with the requirements of the cotton picker, with more than 4,500 plants per mu, ensuring the combination of agricultural machinery and agronomy and creating conditions for later mechanical harvesting.

In order to test the results of the project implementation over the past half year, in late November, the Agricultural Mechanization Department of the Ministry of Agriculture organized experts from relevant departments such as the Hubei Provincial Agricultural Machinery Bureau, the Hubei Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and the Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Reclamation Sciences to accept the project through on-site demonstrations. During the on-site demonstration, 1 John Deere backpack-type single-row cotton harvester and 1 Changpai-brand 4MZ-3 three-row cotton harvester demonstrated cotton harvesting operations. In less than half an hour, the field originally full of snow-white cotton became a bare expanse. The acceptance team unanimously agreed that the project passed acceptance. "Through the integration of agricultural machinery and agronomy and the integration and application of full-process mechanization technology in cotton production, an average cost saving and income increase of more than 300 yuan per mu can be achieved." Liu Hong'an, one of the project leaders, said excitedly in the face of the acceptance results.

China's mechanized cotton production is mainly concentrated in the Xinjiang cotton region. Mechanized cotton production in the Yangtze River Basin cotton region has only just started and is still in the exploratory stage. Although the project has played a good demonstration role for full-process mechanized cotton production in the Yangtze River Basin, the problems and difficulties in the project implementation process still cannot be ignored. On the day of the demonstration meeting, the reporter saw at the site that although machine-picked cotton is highly efficient, its harvest quality still lags considerably behind manual picking. On the one hand, because it was drizzling at the time and the air humidity was high, the effect of machine-picked cotton was affected, and many cotton bolls still remained; on the other hand, affected by technology, most mechanically picked cotton still needed a second round of manual picking to be completely harvested. Moreover, mechanically picked cotton has a high impurity content. A cotton farmer visiting the site told the reporter that manual cotton picking only removes the cotton bolls, and the picked cotton is very clean and intact, without damaging the cotton fibers, while mechanically picked cotton contains too many impurities and also breaks the cotton fibers, which seriously affects the selling price of the cotton. It can be seen that how to improve the quality of machine-picked cotton is indeed one of the difficult problems urgently needing to be solved in full-process mechanized cotton production.

In response to this problem, Zhou Liming, deputy director of the Hubei Provincial Agricultural Machinery Bureau, said that the issue of the impurity content of machine-picked cotton cannot be avoided, and how to reduce impurities to the lowest possible level through machinery is one of the key issues in the next step of research on full-process mechanization of cotton production. "Improving the quality of machine-picked cotton so that the cotton can fetch a good price is our wish, and even more so the wish of cotton farmers. It would be best if a cotton cleaning machine that follows the cotton picker could be developed." Zhou Liming said.

The focus of full-process mechanization of cotton production falls on the word "machinery," but the high price of cotton pickers first hinders the path to their promotion and popularization. At present, most of the cotton pickers used in China are imported from abroad, with an average price of more than 2 million yuan. This price is difficult for ordinary cotton farmers to bear, and even cooperatives and enterprises dare not easily purchase them without the guarantee of large-area operations.

In addition to cotton pickers, machinery selection and matching also affect mechanized cotton production in the Yangtze River Basin. For example, in the mechanized sowing stage of cotton, because the power wheel and the seeding plate of the seeder are in a straight line, the power wheel presses over the soil after sowing, causing the sowing furrow to be too deep. If rainy weather occurs, it will seriously affect seed germination and later cotton growth. "Selecting supporting machinery suitable for cotton production in the Yangtze River Basin is very critical. If existing models cannot meet the local cotton planting requirements, they must be improved for matching. Research on and promotion of matching models is also the focus of our next step of work." Zhou Liming said.

Improving the level of full-process mechanization of cotton production in the Yangtze River Basin is a systematic project. From the breeding of cotton varieties to field management and then to cotton harvesting, every link needs to develop simultaneously. This requires the cooperation of government departments, research institutes, agricultural machinery enterprises, and other relevant departments, and focused support for the weak links in the full-process mechanization of cotton production, so that full-process mechanization of cotton production in the Yangtze River Basin can be realized as soon as possible.