Cotton

April–May under assured irrigation, which extends the season and lets early picking rounds finish before pink bollworm pressure peaks; June–July with the onset of monsoon on rainfed tracts. Sowing date is the single highest-leverage decision on this page because it decides which month picking falls in.

Roughly 600–800 g per acre (1.5–2.0 kg/ha) for Bt hybrids. Non-Bt or desi varieties, sown closer, need somewhat more. Always sow the refuge-seed packet bundled with a certified Bt bag around the field border — it is not optional.

Pink bollworm overwinters inside old cotton stalks and crop residue left standing in the field. Several states legally require stalk destruction (uprooting, shredding or burning residue) by a set date after the last picking — skipping it hands next season’s pest population a head start that no amount of spraying fully undoes.

Roughly 6–8 where canal or well water is assured, concentrated at squaring, flowering and boll formation. On rainfed tracts the crop depends on 600–1,100 mm of monsoon rainfall instead — this is why sowing is timed to the monsoon’s onset rather than a fixed calendar date.

A common recommendation for irrigated Bt hybrid cotton is 100:50:50 kg/ha of N:P:K — full phosphorus and potash with about a third of the nitrogen at sowing, then the remaining nitrogen split across squaring and peak flowering/boll formation.

That is pink bollworm, the most damaging pest of Indian cotton. It is often found inside a “rosetted” flower — one whose petals are stuck together by webbing — before it ever moves into a boll. Pheromone traps from 45 days after sowing catch the problem early; see the Pests section above for control.

₹8,267 per quintal for medium staple and ₹8,667 per quintal for long staple, for the 2026–27 season, as notified by the Government of India and procured through the Cotton Corporation of India.

Disturb a plant and look for tiny white insects flying up in a cloud, then check the underside of leaves for clusters. Left unchecked, whitefly weakens the plant directly through sap loss and spreads cotton leaf curl virus in northern growing tracts.

15–25 quintals per hectare of seed cotton (kapas) for an irrigated Bt hybrid under normal management; over 25 q/ha is achievable with drip irrigation and no major pink bollworm outbreak. A rainfed crop yields meaningfully less and varies more year to year with rainfall.

The small non-Bt refuge packet, bundled with every certified Bollgard II bag, is sown around the field border to give pink bollworm a Bt-free food source to survive on. Without it, only bollworms already resistant to the Bt toxin survive and breed, which is exactly how resistance spreads faster across a whole region.

Bolls are picked as they open, in 3–4 rounds roughly 15–20 days apart, from about 150 days after sowing. Pick in the cooler morning hours once dew has dried — wet or dew-covered lint stains and gets downgraded — and use cloth bags, since synthetic sack fibre mixed into lint is one of the most common quality deductions ginners apply.

Sun-dry it for 1–2 days to bring moisture below 8%, then store in a dry, well-ventilated space off the ground, away from any plastic or coloured-fibre contamination. Keep it covered and dry during transport too — wet lint develops fungal staining within hours.

PM-KISAN is not crop-specific — any landholding farmer family meeting the scheme’s land-record and eligibility criteria qualifies, cotton or otherwise. See the Related schemes section below.

Yes, under PMFBY (Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana). Cotton is classified as an annual commercial crop, so the farmer’s premium is capped at 5% of the sum insured — higher than the 2% cap for kharif food and oilseed crops like paddy or maize. Enrolment is seasonal, so check your state’s cut-off date before sowing is complete.

Bt hybrids top out highest under good management, at 15–25 q/ha of seed cotton, well above desi varieties like Suraj (8–12 q/ha) or extra-long-staple hybrids like DCH-32 (10–15 q/ha), which trade yield for fibre quality or low input cost instead. The exact best hybrid for your field is usually the one your state agricultural university or KVK recommends for local pink bollworm pressure and soil type.

Reddish-bronze discolouration on older leaves — “cotton reddening” — is classically a potassium deficiency, sometimes a magnesium deficiency instead, which looks similar but leaves the veins green. Both worsen boll development and fibre quality, so a soil test is worth doing rather than guessing which nutrient is short.

Bolls that turn brown or black without opening cleanly usually point to boll rot, a fungal complex that enters through insect damage or splits in the boll wall and is worse in wet, humid conditions right at opening. Controlling the insects that create entry wounds and avoiding irrigation just before bolls open are the most effective preventions.

Yes — a desi (Gossypium arboreum) variety like Suraj is naturally tolerant of wilt and jassid and needs far less input, but yields meaningfully less and, without the Bt trait, is more exposed to bollworm on its own. It suits low-input, rainfed conditions better than a high-input push for maximum yield.

Profenofos or emamectin benzoate, sprayed at the first sign of infestation and rotated between chemical groups from spray to spray to slow further resistance buildup — using the same chemical repeatedly is what lets resistance take hold fastest. Pheromone traps from 45 days after sowing catch the problem early enough for a spray to still work.

Square shedding is commonly a boron deficiency, especially later in this long-duration crop’s season, or stress from jassid and whitefly feeding on young growth. A soil test for boron and a look at the underside of nearby leaves for hopper damage will usually tell the two apart.