Influence of Defoliants on Cotton Production Technology
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17038337Keywords:
cotton production technology, defoliants, harvesting, postharvest processingAbstract
Uneven boll opening in cotton crops affects yield. Dense leaves obstruct boll opening, delay crop maturity, and create trash during harvesting. Natural leaf drop facilitates mechanical harvesting, but if this process doesn’t occur on time, mechanical harvesting becomes challenging. To address this issue, farmers use chemical defoliants, which promote leaf drop and simplify the mechanical harvesting process. Chemical defoliants play an important role in promoting leaf drop and boll opening. The use of these chemicals improves boll maturity, enhances fiber quality, and increases harvesting efficiency. In different countries, defoliation in cotton crops is carried out through various techniques and methods. In developed countries, highly advanced techniques are used for defoliant spraying and monitoring, whereas in developing countries like India, these techniques are comparatively less advanced. Defoliation makes the cotton crop harvesting process more effective and smoother and it also simplifies post- harvest processing activities.
References
Sharma, K., Manoj, K., Ajinath, D., Vigneshwaran, N., & Saxena, S. (2024). The role of defoliants in modern cotton farming: Facilitating easy mechanical harvesting and enhancing cotton quality. Agri Articles (E-Magazine for Agricultural Articles), 4(6), 109–114.
Chandrasekaran, P., Ravichandran, V., Senthil, A., Mahalingam, L., & Sakthivel, N. (2020). Effect of different defoliants and time of application on defoliation percentage and boll opening percentage in high density cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.). International Journal of Plant & Soil Science, 32, 37–45.
Faircloth, J. C., Edmisten, K. L., Wells, R., & Stewart, A. M. (2004). The influence of defoliation timing on yields and quality of two cotton cultivars. Crop Science, 44(1), 165–172.
Gormus, O., El Sabagh, A., & Kurt, F. (2017). Impact of defoliation timings and leaf pubescence on yield and fiber quality of cotton. Journal of Agricultural Science and Technology, 19, 903–915.
Jin, D., Wang, X., Xu, Y., Gui, H., Zhang, H., Dong, Q., Sikder, R. K., Yang, G., & Song, M. (2020). Chemical defoliant promotes leaf abscission by altering ROS metabolism and photosynthetic efficiency in Gossypium hirsutum. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 21(8), 2738. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21082738
Ma, Y., Chen, X., Huang, C., Hou, T., Lv, X., & Zhang, Z. (2023). Monitoring defoliation rate and boll-opening rate of machine-harvested cotton based on UAV RGB images. European Journal of Agronomy, 151, 126976. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eja.2023.126976
Neupane, J., Maja, J. M., Miller, G., Marshall, M., Cutulle, M., Greene, J., Luo, J., & Barnes, E. (2023). The next generation of cotton defoliation sprayer. Agricultural Engineering, 5(1), 441–459. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriengineering5010029
Singh, M., Sharma, K., Mishra, P. K., Dixit, A. K., & Patel, B. (2017). Defoliation effect on cotton crop by using different sprayers. Agricultural Engineering Today, 41, 31–34.
Wang, H., Gao, K., Fang, S., & Zhou, Z. (2019). Cotton yield and defoliation efficiency in response to nitrogen and harvest aids. Agronomy Journal, 111(1), 250–256. https://doi.org/10.2134/agronj2018.05.0334
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 P. V. S. Ramunaidu, Jyostnarani Pradhan
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
