HARVESTING AND GINNING OF COTTON IN THE WORLD

Abstract

About 30% of world cotton production is harvested by machines. Australia, Israel and the USA are the only countries where all cotton is picked by machines. Machine picking is increasing in Argentina and Brazil. Machine picking may be adopted in Turkey in the next few years. Picking costs greatly vary among countries. About 85% of total cotton in the world in ginned on saw gins. Most countries have either large scale saw ginning or roller ginning, although small scale roller ginning does exist in some countries. Among the major cotton producing countries of the world, India and Turkey are the only countries where saw ginning and roller ginning are popular. Ginning is most expensive in Spain followed by Argentina, Zimbabwe, Australia and Colombia. Ginning is heavily subsidized in China (Mainland). Harvesting Cotton can either be picked by hand or by machines. Manual picking is slow but better preserves fiber characteristics of cotton. Boll opening is the first action on the fiber which pushes fibers from the place where they were embedded for weeks before being exposed to the external conditions. The boll opening action is gentle and thus has no effect on the fiber quality. However, a longer stay of the open bolls in the field may change the color and also make the fibers shrink, thus affecting the three most important fiber characters, i.e. length, strength and micronaire. One character may be affected more than the other if there is a frequent dew. Such an effect cannot be eliminated as all bolls do not open at the same time and some open bolls have to stay in the field for days and sometime even weeks. In the case of hand picking, it is possible to pick open boll s at frequent intervals, and weather effects on the fiber, after bolls have opened, can be minimized. In China (Mainland) this effect is minimized as land holdings are so small that the majority of the growers who have planted cotton on about 1/10th of a hectare, can go many times to the field to pick few open bolls. In slightly bigger plots, fiber quality is preserved throu gh a number of pickings during the season. 3-4 pickings/season are very common in many countries where cotton is hand picked.