Repeated ploughing is necessary to obtain a good tilth.
Every effort may be made to secure a pulverised surface.
Too much cultivation for cotton is not considered to possess
any special benefits.
Running of blade harrow two or three times across the field produce
a fairly good tilth.
After getting required tilth, the land is laid out into ridges and
furrows with the help of a ridge plough or a bund former.
Ridging of land and sowing cotton on ridges economise the use of
irrigation water and the furrows acts drainage channels whenever heavy
rains are received particularly in heavy clays. Ridging is very useful
for sowing of seed by dibbling and later irrigation and also facilitates
for better drainage.
Length of ridge/furrow depends on slope of land.
If the slope is < 1 % the ridge length may be 30 - 40 meters.
Provide proper water ways (particularly in heavy soils) along the
slope of the land for draining excess water under heavy rainfall situations.
Cotton being highly sensitive to poor drainage.
Expeditious accompletion of sowing on the black soils is necessary
if undesirable results of late sowing due to heavy showers of rain are
to be avoided.
For good growth of cotton plants on deep black soils three things
besides initial soil fertility are usually necessary.
a) The soil should be free from injurious weeds.
b) The soil should possess adequate moisture in the surface layers
for the first few weeks after sowing.
c) It should be provided with good surface drainage thereafter to
prevent water - logging.
Deep cultivation in hot dry tracts encourages loss of moisture as
well as organic matter from soil. More frequent tillage than is really
necessary is also said to produce the same adverse effects.
For hybrids/high yielding varieties of cotton, since, cotton hybrids
are deep rooted, 2 - 3 deep ploughings are necessary by using mould
board plough or tractor drawn disc ploughs.
Use of sub-soiler may be helpful in heavy black soils once in 2 -
3 years where soil pans are usually formed.
For irrigated cotton, the land is usually given a preparatory flooding
and ploughed two or three times to secure a good tilth.
Ikisan - Equipments to be used for cotton land preparation
Equipment to be used
The tillage implements used for growing the cotton crop vary with
the:
nature of the soil,
the method of growing the crop and
the different operations of cultivation.
The implements in common use is:
Desi plough,
the bakhar or blade harrow,
a beam leveller or cold crusher,
single or multi-coultered wooden seed drills,
Kolpa or blade cultivator and
a Khurpi or hand hoe
pegged or spike toothed harrows
three tines hoes(triphallies)
Note
These two implements are used in Punjab state in place of blade harrows.
Desi plough
These are light implements and are usually drawn by one pair
of bullocks.
They penetrate only three to five inches of soil, breaking it into
small clods.
The desi plough only stirs the soil and does not invert it.
Essentially similar in design in all part of the country, the wooden
plough varies in dimensions to suit the prevailing soil types, moisture
conditions and the size of strength of the draft animals.
Light mould-board ploughs, made wholly of iron, or partly of iron
and partly of wood.
Commonly used in place of the desi ploughs.
Available in the market in variety to suit different soil conditions
and purposes.
These improved implements do the work more efficiently by inverting
the soil and thus burying weeds and plant residues that may be remaining
on the surface.
Guntaka / baljar / Kunte
This implement is used for preparatory cultivation in black
cotton soils.
The body of this implement is made up of a log of wood, rectangular
or octagonal in shape, three to six feet in length, twelve to fifteen
inches in width and two to three inches in thickness.
A handle is attached on the upper side of this log and a yoke pole
for a pair of bullocks in front.
The working part of the implement consists of a heavy blade or iron.
The blade is attached to the log on its under side by means of two
slanting wooden pegs.
In some parts of Madras, an improved guntaka, having a slightly curved
blade fitted to an iron frame instead of a log of wood, is in use.
The most effective single implement for light and economic cultivation
of the black soils.
The blade harrow is also used for breaking clods, levelling land,
or covering the sown seed by running it inverted after detaching the
handle.
Implements used for sowing
Akkadi / Mogha / Sadde / Sarota
The implement in general use for sowing the seed in lines in the black
cotton soil tracts is the simple appliance called mogha, sarota, sadde
or akkadi.
This one-row drill consists of a single bamboo tube, about three to
four feet in length and one-and-a-half or two inches in diameter.
The tube is fitted at its upper end with a perforated wooden bowl
into which the seed is fed.
The implement is fastened by a rope to a blade harrow and guided by
a woman along the furrow made by the edge of harrow blade.
Gorru / Gorrukalappi / Tiphan / Difan / Phadak
Indigenous drill with two or three tubes commonly used for sowing
the cotton seed. It consists of a beam fitted with two or three types
resembling little ploughs, each of which has a hole running through
it.
Into these holes are fitted bamboo or metal tubes, the upper ends
of which meet in a wooden or metallic bowl. When the implement is driven
across the field, the seed fed into the cup falls down the tubes and
drops into the small furrows made by the little ploughs. These simple,
indigenous drills have been in use for centuries past and have been
found satisfactory in operation and well suited to the available, small-sized
draft animals.
However, it does not have any device for regulating the distance
between plants in the rows.
Hand hoe
For the weeding of the crop, hand hoes of different types are used.
This implement not only removes the weeds but also loosens the soil.
The implement used for the same purpose in Uttar Pradesh and in the
black cotton soil tracts in central, western and southern India, is
a small sized, triangular or sickle shaped hand hoe known as Khurpi.
The bent blade of the Khurpi has a sharp edge, which penetrates the
soil easily and uproots the young weeds.
Bullock - Hoe/Danthulu/Tiphalli
This implement has three bent, iron tines attached to a wooden log
which is provided with a handle and a yoke pole.
The width of the implement is adapted to the spacing between the successive
cotton rows.
In the black cotton soil tracts in central and southern India, the
hoeing is done by bullock hoes, called variously Kolpa, dauri, daura,
yade kunte and danthulu. This implement resembles the blade harrow.
Implement consists of a heavy beam of wood and six to seven feet
in length, is used for breaking the clods.
This beam of wood has two chains in front, which are fixed to a yoke,
and it is drawn by a pair of bullocks.
While working the implement, the operator stands on the log to weight
it down. This implement is also used for levelling and compacting the
soil before sowing.
Land Preparation
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