Interviews
Cotton cultivation to boost grower's income
03 Dec '05
3 min read
India's cotton growers can now make a lot of extra income from the country's annual generation of about 16m (160 lakh) tonne of cotton stalks from about 8.2m hectares, which is under cotton cultivation.
After selling the 'kapas' or cotton, cotton growers can make better use the cotton stalks by using new technologies that are available especially in making them into particle board, which has been proved almost equivalent to those made from wood.
The biomass left in the field after picking up seed cotton is called cotton stalk. A farmer can get at least three tonnes of stalks per hectare but the hybrids yield more. The stalk yields are more under irrigated conditions than in rain-fed rainfed crop.
Scientists from the Central Institute for Research on Cotton Technology (CIRCOT) have not only developed technologies required for converting the stalk into different types of particle boards but also worked out complete economics of it and the profit for the farmers without much extra effort. Director S Sreenivasan informed that this will also generate self employment.
He also added that cotton plant stalk contains about 60 percent holocellulose, 7 percent lignin and 7 percent ash and is comparable to the most common species of hardwood in respect of fibrous structure unlike other agricultural crop residues.
If the farmer wants to dispose stalks in the field itself, he can expect a minimum income of Rs 500 per tonne while if the stalks are cleaned and chipped and transported to the mill, it would fetch him upto Rs 1,200.
After selling the 'kapas' or cotton, cotton growers can make better use the cotton stalks by using new technologies that are available especially in making them into particle board, which has been proved almost equivalent to those made from wood.
The biomass left in the field after picking up seed cotton is called cotton stalk. A farmer can get at least three tonnes of stalks per hectare but the hybrids yield more. The stalk yields are more under irrigated conditions than in rain-fed rainfed crop.
Scientists from the Central Institute for Research on Cotton Technology (CIRCOT) have not only developed technologies required for converting the stalk into different types of particle boards but also worked out complete economics of it and the profit for the farmers without much extra effort. Director S Sreenivasan informed that this will also generate self employment.
He also added that cotton plant stalk contains about 60 percent holocellulose, 7 percent lignin and 7 percent ash and is comparable to the most common species of hardwood in respect of fibrous structure unlike other agricultural crop residues.
If the farmer wants to dispose stalks in the field itself, he can expect a minimum income of Rs 500 per tonne while if the stalks are cleaned and chipped and transported to the mill, it would fetch him upto Rs 1,200.
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