Save 40 yuan per acre! Topping-free cotton frees labor in cotton fields

In Xinjiang, the area sown with cotton has reached more than 30 million mu.

Every July, the cotton here begins to enter the topping period.

Here, cotton is almost fully mechanized just short of topping!

Cotton topping

In previous years, manual topping was 30-40 yuan/mu. In the past one or two years, with the reduction of short-term workers from the mainland, labor shortages and rising costs have not only made it difficult to meet the needs of processing large-scale plots in about 15 days. Requirements, and the artificial miss rate is also high. For growers with thousands of acres or even tens of thousands of acres of cotton fields, one worker is required for every 100 acres of cotton fields for long-term management. The area will not be limited to 100 mu, and the labor cost saved will be a considerable amount.

Cotton Chemical Reagent Topping

For now, in addition to manual topping, mechanical topping and chemical topping are commonly used in cotton topping. Mechanical topping miss-cut rate and flower bud loss rate are high; using chemical reagents for topping can easily lead to excessive growth of side branches, poor ventilation and light transmission of cotton plants, resulting in increased rotten bolls, clusters of buds, and low fruit-setting rate.

These topping methods have certain disadvantages in terms of cost and effect, and are currently the only bottleneck restricting the mechanization of cotton planting.

Xinjiang Cotton "Two Reductions and One Exemption" High-yield Cultivation Project Achieved Phased Success

Xinjiang Cotton "Two Reductions and One Exemption" High-yield Cultivation Project Experimental Field

In the Korla region of Xinjiang, there are nearly 800 mu of experimental fields, and the demonstration test of the "Xinjiang Cotton 'Two Reductions and One Exemption' High-yield Cultivation Project" is underway. "Two reductions and one exemption" refers to reducing the amount of fertilizer application, reducing the amount of irrigation water, eliminating the topping process, and improving the economic benefits of cotton planting under the condition of ensuring high cotton yield.

In order to achieve the applied research goal of "two reductions and one exemption" for cotton in Xinjiang, the Precision Agriculture Research Institute of Greencare Huazhong Agricultural University based on the nutrient detection results of local water and soil, combined with the target yield and quality requirements, the target cotton plant type, canopy structure, and population Characteristics, local fertilizer costs and the law of cotton fertilizer requirements in various periods, etc., and many other reference elements, formulate a cotton nutritional solution, and have been recognized by the experts of the expert committee.

Green Kell Larry fertilizer was used throughout the test. According to the principle of controlling shoots by fruit, the interaction effect of fertilizer formula adjustment, fertilizer dosage, water control and plant growth regulators was used as the starting point, and the direction of plant nutrient transportation was changed through water and fertilizer planning. To weaken the vegetative growth of cotton plants and transition to reproductive growth faster; inhibit the growth of cotton tops, allow side branches to grow, increase branches, produce more cotton bolls, increase boll weight, and cotton bolls become larger from bottom to top, while controlling excessive branching The cotton plant type has a high photosynthetic utilization rate, a large effective photosynthetic area, a single boll weight, and a high peach yield.

Using fertilizer formulations and irrigation water

Control overgrowth of tips and branches

When the test was carried out until August 20th, the total amount of fertilizer input was 44kg/mu (no base fertilizer), and the irrigation water was 270m3/mu. The average plant height: 85-90cm, leaf age: 20, fruit moss branches: 13 The number of moss and peaches: 11 (diameter ≥ 3cm) test results. Tests have shown that under the condition of no manual topping, the topping-free cultivation technique of adjusting fertilizer formula and irrigation water consumption can also achieve high-quality and high-yield cotton. Promotion laid the groundwork.

The Industrial Potential of Cotton Free Topping

The whole nutrition solution provided by the Precision Agriculture Research Institute of Greencare Huazhong Agricultural University has successfully realized the topping-free cotton through water and fertilizer management, reduced labor intensity, liberated productivity to the greatest extent, and avoided leaf damage caused by manual and mechanical topping. Scratching and shedding of bolls, long time span, missed beating, and re-hitting difficulties, and solved the problem of low peach rate caused by poor ventilation and light transmission of chemical topping cotton plants, allowing cotton to truly realize the whole process from sowing to harvesting Mechanized planting reduces the amount of manual labor and can save at least 40 yuan in labor costs per mu.