Technology to force the world's largest cotton base to take off

In the early winter season, the north has been cold and has been flying in snow. However, the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang is still sunny and the willows are low. Looking far from the foothills of the Tianshan Mountains and the Kunlun Mountains, the snow is shining and shining. In the Tarim Basin, Populus euphratica is flaming, Tamaris golden, and cotton white.

In early November, the author drove into the world's largest cotton-producing area, the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang.

Bending back and picking up cotton is a labor scene that Chinese farmers have followed for thousands of years. Today, in the Tarim Basin, the world's largest cotton-producing area, the history of artificial cotton picking is being rewritten. As the cotton picker swells into the fields, the long harvest period that spans the fall and winter seasons begins to shorten, and the picking-up situation is quietly changing.

In the Alargar region on the Tarim River, the cottonfields in the vast expanse of cotton were white, and the picking scenes of the past were no longer in existence. With the cotton picking machinery rumbled in and reciprocated, a blossoming cotton was constantly drawn into the belly of the cotton picker. Despite the shortage of flower pickers all over the country this year, the agricultural workers of the Agricultural Corps of the First Division of the First Corps of the BINGTUAN are very calm.

The company’s 107-acre cotton, which was used by Hao Jiming’s family, originally required 13 people to complete the harvest in just over two months. Today, it has only been harvested for most of the day. Zhang Lian, deputy director of the company’s vice president of technology, said: With a workload of 800 people, now only one harvester is required to perform the task. The cotton produced is not only less contaminated, but it also shortens the long harvesting season.

According to Zhang Le, before the promotion of the cotton picker in 2004, the organs, police, and schools of the First Division of the BINGTUAN agricultural division had to suspend work, and all government officials, primary and secondary school students, and even medical personnel had to pick cotton in the fields. , rush to finish the harvest season before God "face change".

According to a normal workforce picking 60 kilograms of cotton per day, each flower picker needs to bend at least ten thousand times a day, which is a great devastation to their bodies. In the Tarim Basin, many agricultural workers who harvest cotton each year and the Corps of Agricultural Workers suffer from lumbar muscle strain and lumbar disc herniation.

Due to the scarcity of land in Xinjiang and the relative shortage of rural labor force, with the expansion of cotton acreage and the increase in total production volume, a large number of foreign migrant workers are required each year in the cotton harvest season, reaching a maximum of more than 600,000 people. The large-scale promotion of the cotton picker not only liberates the labor force, but also greatly reduces the production cost, allowing the cotton farmers to save time and effort.

Today, nearly one-third of the cotton fields in the Alar district rely on mechanical picking. Since Xinjiang took advantage of the large-scale cotton mechanized picking operations, mechanized picking of cotton has not only achieved the purpose of increasing farm efficiency, but also increasing workers' income. Fundamentally changed the situation in the past picking season, urban authorities stopped working, factories were shut down, shops were closed, and primary and secondary schools were suspended. More importantly, the use of such machinery not only eases the heavy labor of picking cotton, but also reduces the cost of manual cotton picking. According to Zhang Le, using mechanically picked cotton, the cost per kilogram is less than 0.6 yuan, which is less than 1/3 of the manual picking.

The Tarim Basin is one of the driest regions in the world. The lack of water resources is the biggest problem that restricts local agricultural production. Nowadays, in the large-scale promotion of cotton pickers, the spreading of aircraft and the popularization of under-film drip tubes have made it possible to “graft” high-tech and irrigation models and continue to increase local cotton production and increase the income of cotton farmers.

Today, in the Alar area, people are thousands of miles away. Through computer-based intelligent control systems, remote control of cotton fields can be remotely controlled using mobile phones; farmland monitoring information systems work day and night, real-time monitoring of water and salt indicators, application of fertilizers and snoring drugs, and shortages. You will make up for it. The construction of modern farms represented by information technology has become one of the models of China's agricultural modernization.

It is to see this potential for production. Xinjiang continues to raise subsidies, making the original cost of 630 yuan per mu, farmers only need to spend 230 yuan, thereby mobilizing the farmers to use drip irrigation technology enthusiasm. With government subsidies, this year, Zhao Yongsheng, a major cotton producer in Korla, changed all his 112-acre cotton fields into a “drip irrigation under the membrane” model. This kind of irrigation changes the traditional “irrigated irrigation land” to “direct-irrigated crops,” and the yield is more than 30% higher than that of ordinary cotton fields. Zhao Yongsheng said: “In the first year of water-saving facilities, the largest investment is made. After that, only a small amount of investment is needed every year to buy drip irrigation belts.”

Zhao Yongsheng said that once water was poured over cotton, it would take 180 cubic meters of water per acre. With new irrigation methods, it would require less than 100 cubic meters of water per acre. What is even more exciting is that drip irrigation technology can directly increase production: The low-yielding field that originally used less than 200 kilograms of seed cotton per acre has now reached an average yield of more than 300 kilograms. The increase in cotton yields led him to withdraw all his investment. "High-tech coupled with good prices, this year's net income can reach more than 100,000 yuan."

All this happened in the Takrim area of ​​Xinjiang is enough to interpret the myth of cotton high yield in Xinjiang. Over the years, Xinjiang has taken the lead in promoting mulching, high-density cultivation, and drip irrigation under the membrane. With the promotion of cotton pickers, Xinjiang has been sitting steadily in the country's cotton production and unit production for many years in a row. The cotton output has accounted for 1/9 of the world's production, 1/3 of the national output, and it has gradually taken Xinjiang's largest The cotton producing area --- the Tarim Basin has sent the world's largest cotton production base.