Detailed Explanation of Simplified High-Yield Cotton Cultivation Techniques

During cotton cultivation, cotton farmers often ask: Why is bud and boll shedding so severe? Why are there so many "black bolls"? Besides "blaming the bad weather" and "blaming too much rain," shouldn't cotton farmers also consider that excessive cotton field density is the "chief culprit"?

In the past, it was fairly common for cotton farmers to leave 5000-6000 plants per mu with "one plant every ?? apart." Now, cotton fields with a density of 3000-4000 plants per mu are still everywhere, and "excessive density" is a common problem for most cotton farmers. As a result, the development of individual cotton plants is hindered, the number of fruiting branches decreases, the field becomes closed and shaded, spraying is difficult and the spraying quality is poor, thus causing the "three excesses," namely increased bud and boll shedding, more diseases and pests, and more black bolls in the later stage, which has a serious negative impact on high yield and high efficiency of cotton. From the perspective of nutrient levels, the fertilization for super-high yield on highly fertile land is equivalent to 100 grams per square meter; with 4 plants per square meter under pruned cultivation (about 2700 plants per mu), the average nutrient uptake per plant is 25 grams; if 2 plants per square meter are left under "no-pruning cotton" lazy cultivation (about 1300 plants per mu), the average nutrient uptake per plant is 50 grams; from this simple listing of data, it is not difficult to see that under pruned cultivation, because the retained plant density is too high, only about 1/2 of the fertilizer "supplies the cotton plant but cannot supply the cotton bolls"; at the same time, pruning is labor-intensive and time-consuming, and can also cause rampant growth of superfluous buds, mutual interference among cotton plants, and field shading; if unreasonable chemical regulation is added, the cotton bolls produced are both small and few. In addition, the grown branches that are then broken off not only waste a large amount of fertilizer in vain, but also damage the cotton plants.

Under the current situation, as more young and middle-aged rural people go out to work, the "main force" of cotton growing in rural areas is the elderly and women, and "no-pruning cotton" (also called "lazy cotton" or simplified cultivation) has increasingly won the approval of the vast number of cotton farmers. Researcher Guo Xiangmo, an authoritative expert from the Cotton Research Institute, affirmed the important significance of "no-pruning cotton" simplified cultivation in the 2010 book "Cost-Saving and Efficiency-Enhancing Cotton Cultivation Techniques."

Experts suggest: "No-pruning cotton" relies on 3-5 vegetative branches to set more bolls (the higher the fertility, the more vegetative branches), and the number of bolls per plant is 1-2 times that of traditionally pruned cotton. Therefore, no-pruning cotton must be given enough growing space, and the density should be about 50% of the retained plants of local ordinary pruned varieties, with sparser planting the higher the fertility. Moreover, actual planting in various places has proven that, in addition to high yield and increased production, sparse planting also has the advantages of "three savings and three reductions," namely saving labor, saving effort, and saving pesticides, and fewer diseases and pests, less bud and boll shedding, and fewer black bolls. For some cotton farmers who still adopt traditional pruning and branch removal cultivation, it is suggested that they may try a small area of no-pruning sparse planting trial and a comparison trial of pruned cultivation with density reduced by 10%-30%, and let the trial convince them.

Special reminder: The author has been devoted to the research and promotion of "no-pruning cotton" for seven years, and in addition to selecting more than 20 no-pruning varieties suitable for "only topping once," has successfully promoted them in cotton areas such as Dezhou, Binzhou, and Dongying. What needs to be reminded to the vast number of cotton farmers here is that some varieties with characteristics such as poor boll-setting ability, relatively small bolls, poor and unsmooth boll opening, poor disease resistance, and more fuzz are not suitable for simplified cultivation, and cotton farmers must select the right varieties.