First bolls are opening. When to start picking cotton and how to avoid trash and stained lint for better price?
When should I start cotton picking and how to keep good quality (kapas)?
LLingaiah Goud1yr ago · 386 views
6 Answers
🌾Farmer.in Krishi TeamExpert ✓1yr ago
Start picking when bolls are fully open and the lint is dry, usually mid morning after dew has gone. Pick at 15 to 20 day intervals so cotton does not stay open too long collecting dust, rain stain, and pest damage. Pick only fully opened bolls, leave partly open ones for the next round, and keep good cotton separate from stained or insect damaged cotton because mixing lowers the whole lot grade. Avoid plastic fibre contamination, use cotton bags not plastic sacks for collection, and store in a dry place. Clean, low moisture, low trash cotton fetches a better price and qualifies for MSP grading. Finish picking and the crop by January to February to break the pink bollworm cycle.
🌾Farmer.in Krishi TeamExpert ✓10mo ago
Storage matters as much as picking. Keep the cotton off the bare floor on a tarp or wooden platform in a dry room, away from leaking roofs and kerosene or fertiliser that can taint it. A clean, dry, low moisture lot is exactly what gets accepted under CCI grading, so confirm the moisture limit at your procurement centre before taking the load.
KKomuraiah Pochaiah1yr ago
The plastic contamination point is bigger than people think. Buyers in our Adilabad market reject or cut the price when they see polypropylene threads from old sacks mixed in the lint. We switched to cotton cloth bags and even told the pickers not to tie their hair bands or polythene into the heap.
SSammaiah Kumbam1yr ago
Keep the first clean white picking separate from the late, weather stained pickings and sell them as two lots. Mixing the bright early cotton with the dull tail end pulls the whole grade down. I get a clearly better average rate by grading at home before the cart leaves.
RRamakrishna Dornala11mo ago
Pick only after the dew dries. Damp cotton picked early morning raises the moisture in the heap and the buyer cuts the rate, and stored damp it can yellow or even heat up. We start mid morning and spread the day's pick thinly in the shade to let any moisture go before bagging.
BBhagyamma Erra11mo ago
Tell the pickers to take only the fully opened bolls and not yank out the dried leaf and bract bits with the lint. That trash is what pulls the grade down at ginning. Paying a little extra for clean picking earned me more than the labour cost because the lot fetched a higher rate.