Cotton Harvesting Techniques: Careful Picking Brings Higher Returns

I. Cotton should be harvested at the right time

Cotton harvesting is the last step in cotton production and the key to ensuring a high-yield, high-efficiency harvest. Because cotton is an indeterminate inflorescence crop, it successively forms buds, flowers, bolls and maturity, and requires multiple harvests. Therefore, after the cotton boll matures, the third stage of fiber development still has to be completed during the cracking process, namely the fiber dehydration and convolution period, about 7 days or so. The moisture content of the cotton boll shell drops from 80% to 30%, and the moisture content of the cotton pulp drops from 57% to 18%. The fiber further dehydrates and matures, forming convolutions, and at the same time, due to cellulose deposition, fiber strength continues to increase. Therefore, generally after 6-8 days the fiber strength of the cotton boll reaches its highest, with good maturity, more fiber convolutions, white and bright color, high grade, and high yield.

II. During the cotton harvesting period, pay attention to rushing in the harvest when there is continuous rainy weather

The cotton harvesting period is very long, about 2 months or more. During the boll-opening and harvesting period, if there is sufficient sunlight, higher temperature and lower humidity, cotton bolls open quickly and smoothly; on the contrary, if there is long-term low temperature and continuous rain, the cotton bolls cannot open normally, the harvesting period is prolonged, making harvesting difficult, the cotton bolls become moldy, the cotton fiber quality declines, and both yield and income are reduced. Therefore, according to the growth and development characteristics of cotton and the experience of high-yield and high-quality cultivation techniques, in addition to adopting stress-resistant and early-promoting cultivation management to try to stagger the harvesting period from continuous rainy weather, it is also necessary to seize sunny days and battle rainy days, that is, harvest quickly on sunny days and rush to harvest on rainy days. If there is a year of long-term continuous rain with relatively low temperature, and the cotton bolls crack slowly or cannot open normally, the mature cotton bolls should be picked and harvested, and can be heated and dried indoors to promote after-ripening, cracking and boll opening.

III. When harvesting cotton, do not mix in the “three fibers”

The “three fibers” (also called foreign fibers) refers to the general term for foreign soft substances such as colored fibers, agricultural film, hair strands and down. Because after the “three fibers” are mixed in during the processes of cotton harvesting, drying, storage and processing, and then through the ginning process they change from long strands into short fine filaments and from large pieces into small particles. These fine filaments and particles, after many spinning processes, become increasingly fine particles. Spinning and weaving with cotton containing “fine filaments and particles” produces defects, greatly affecting spinning quality during spinning. Therefore, the mixing in of the “three fibers” must be strictly controlled.

IV. How to prevent the “three fibers” from being mixed into cotton

The sources of the “three fibers” are a series of production operation processes such as harvesting, drying, processing, packaging and storage. Therefore, quality control from the pollution source of seed cotton is fundamental to improving the quality of raw cotton. First, publicize to cotton farmers to raise awareness of the harm of the “three fibers”; second, when picking cotton, do not use chemical fiber bags, but use cotton cloth bags to collect cotton. When drying cotton, use supports and cotton cloth as drying sheets to prevent mixing in the “three fibers” from drying flowers on the ground or on the road; third, store separately for control, and at home it must be stored separately and strictly separated from livestock and poultry; fourth, when picking and drying, people should wear hats to prevent mixing in hair, and at the same time household sorting is encouraged, and once found, it should be picked out and handled; fifth, processing and purchasing enterprises should adopt control measures.