Industrial Cluster: Cotton Planting Progress In Southern Xinjiang Exceeds 50%

According to the survey of Korla, Aksu and Kashi cotton regions and feedback from some ginning plants, although cotton regions have frequently encountered strong wind, sand and dust, and cooling weather since late March, cotton planting is still carried out in an orderly manner. Up to now, the overall cotton planting progress in southern Xinjiang has exceeded 50%.

Comparatively speaking, the progress in Yuepu Lake, Jiashi, Bachu, Kuqa, Shaya and other cotton areas is slightly faster, and the seeding progress in each regiment is slightly faster. On the one hand, limited by the local soil and water resources, winter irrigation and spring irrigation of cotton fields in some autonomous regions are earlier than those in previous years. In addition, from the perspective of growth period, in order not to miss the moisture content, cotton farmers in southern Xinjiang have started sowing "cumin+cotton", "fennel+cotton" and other economic crops and cotton interplanting around March 25; On the other hand, since the first ten days of April, cotton sowing has been fully started, and some cotton producing areas, counties and townships are short of sowing equipment. There is a situation of allocating machinery support from other regions in Xinjiang. In order to grab moisture and maintain a long life, sowing works all day long, and the efficiency has been greatly improved.

According to cotton farmers in Kashgar, Aksu and other places, sowing is expected to end around April 20, and Korla cotton region may be slightly delayed for 3-5 days. From the survey, in 2025, the area of pepper, fennel, tomato and cotton interplanting in the three major cotton regions of southern Xinjiang will decrease compared with that of the previous year, mainly due to the shortage of water resources and the change of fees to taxes. Compared with vegetables, melons and other crops, the planting area of drought resistant liquorice, cumin, salvia miltiorrhiza, scutellaria baicalensis, safflower, isatis root, and forsythia suspensa will continue to expand compared with that of the previous two years The competent agricultural departments of Jiashi County and Kuqa County also actively advocate and promote the planting of Chinese herbal medicine (most of them are led by local governments, and farmers practice "order" planting).

As for the cotton planting area in southern Xinjiang in 2025, most farmers reported a slight increase in the same proportion. In addition to many cotton areas requiring the proportion of grain planting area to be equal to that in 2024, it also increased with the planting area of Chinese herbal medicine, the recent rise of grain futures at home and abroad, and the delayed issuance of targeted price subsidies for cotton in Xinjiang in 2024/25, and the "bidding" of some counties and villages for cultivated land It is also related to factors such as the unsmooth foreign contracting of farmers' cultivated land.