Question

Describe the various stages in the cotton cultivation of India.

Answer 1

Hint: 1)Cotton is a crop thirsty for water & about 6 percent of the water is used in India for cotton cultivation.
2)To describe and predict the occurrence of events/duration of stages in crop production, the measurement of the cumulative heat units and knowledge of the heat unit requirement for any specific growth stage can be used.

Complete answer:
Not only in India, but throughout the world, cotton is the most valuable fibre crop. It supplies the cotton textile industry with the fundamental raw material (cotton fibre). Cotton is a Kharif crop that needs to mature for 6 to 8 months. Depending on the weather conditions, the time of sowing and harvesting varies in different parts of the world. It is sown in April-May in Punjab and Haryana and is harvested in December-January, which is before the crop can be affected by winter frost.

The cultivation of cotton is closely connected to the deep black soils of the Deccan and Malwa Plateaus (regur) and those of Gujarat. It also grows well in the alluvial soils of the Satluj-Ganga Plain and in the peninsular regions in the red and laterite soils.. Cotton easily exhausts the soil's fertility. Therefore, it is very important to regularly apply manure and fertiliser to the soil.

The following are the different stages of India's cotton cultivation.
1)The first phase is land clearing for soil preparation and weed removal.
2)Cotton seeds are either planted by hand or by machinery.
3)In 11 days, the full cotton stand will emerge and must be secured from disease attacks. It is important to provide adequate fertiliser and irrigation.
4)After 6 weeks, flower buds start developing and the pod emerges after it falls off, which is often called a cotton boll.
5)Within 55 to 80 days, Boll matures and produces fibres from the pods that continue to develop.
6)The leaves have now been removed from the cotton plant.
7)The next step is manual harvesting by machines such as pickers/strippers. To pull the cotton from the plant, the picker system uses wind & guides, leaving behind leaves & the rest of the plant. To separate garbage from the cotton, the stripper device chops the plant & uses air.
8)To separate soil, seeds & short lint from the cotton, the cotton is washed.
9)Cleaned & de-seeded cotton is compressed for further processing & transportation for economical storage.

Note: 1)India has the world's largest cotton cultivation area, although it is the third largest cotton producer in the world after China and the USA.
2)Cotton is grown in three different agro-ecological zones in India, namely the northern (Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan), central (Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh) and southern zones (Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka).
3)India is both an exporter and a cotton importer.