Support Egyptian Cotton

 

Egyptian cotton is long staple cotton. It’s the best type of cotton therefore occupies a high export value for the country. This position comes because the long-staple Egyptian cotton is characterized by its length, smoothness and durability, these properties come from the working of both genetic factors and natural factors available uniquely in Egypt, which makes such high-valued crop monopolized in Egypt. This provides an opportunity for Egypt in the highly competitive market of cotton production worldwide.

But unfortunately Egyptian production of cotton decreased over the past fifty years as a direct result of the decline in the price of cotton in the global market. The average area planted with cotton in the thirties of the last century was nearly 2 million acres, it gradually declined till it reached last year only 325 thousand acres.

Cotton R&D in Egypt focused on the development of strains of cotton, but did not bother to develop the cotton harvest mechanization. Which is what the world focus on when producing cotton. While cotton is harvested manually in Egypt, across the world it’s done using agricultural mechanization designed specifically for cotton harvest.

In a unique experiment executed by the Cotton Research Institute to study the impact of the use of mechanization available abroad to harvest Egyptian cotton, The efficiency of the harvested cotton ranged from 64% to 77% only. This low yield is due to the difference of methods of cultivation of Egyptian cotton and the difference in the strain itself in comparison to non-Egyptian cotton cultivated outside Egypt. That is the great motivation for designing automated machinery customized to meet the Egyptian cotton needs.

 

Design an automatic or semi-automatic machine to reap long-staple Egyptian cotton while you take into account the dimensions of the plant, properties of Egyptian cotton, and the harvesting efficiency rate should be over 90%.

 

First: Results of the Cotton Research Institute study on the performance of foreign mechanization in harvesting long-staple Egyptian cotton:

The Institute for the Study of cotton annual experience three different machines on the market harvest automated foreign and the results were as follows:



Why does the harvest efficiency automated machinery dramatically decreases the yield of Egyptian cotton?

• It’s a direct result to the fact that these machinery weren’t designed to cultivate Egyptian cotton and the standards they are designed for is different.

• As a result of the absence of the line separating one line of planted cotton from another and it’s about about 75 cm, the width of the tires of the Machines is greater than the distance between the cultivated lines, which causes the loss of many of the lines just when the machines march.

• The first, second and third boll of the cotton is missed and not picked because the machines were designed for the average height for the 1st boll is 25 cm. However, in Egyptian cotton it’s as short as 18 cm.

• Egyptian cotton can grow as tall as 160 cm but the machines are designed for plants that grow only up to 80 cm.

• Egyptian cotton is planted in a fashion of 2 plants on the same line and the machines are designed for other fashion of cultivating cotton which is 1 plant on each line.

• Sometimes the machines contaminate the yielded cotton when certain lubes are missing from the spindles.

• Machines that harvest cotton throw suction don’t suit Egyptian cotton because cotton sticks too firmly to the flower and it’s done efficiently only throw spindling.

 

Second: Specifications and standard dimensions of Egyptian cotton tree.

Specifications of vegetative and fruiting varieties of Giza Cotton 80, Giza 86, Giza 90 and Giza 92 strains.

 

No.	Characteristic	Giza 80	Giza 86	Giza 90	Giza 92
1	Height of plant by end of season	130 - 140 cm	140 - 160 cm	130 - 150 cm	120 - 130 cm
2	Number of the first fruiting node	7 - 9 Nodes	6 - 7 Nodes	6 - 7 Nodes	6 - 7 Nodes
3	Height of the first fruiting branch	20 - 22 cm	20 - 25 cm	18 - 20 cm	18 - 20 cm
4	Number of fruiting branches per plant	14 - 16 Branches	15 - 17 Branches	14 - 16 Branches	14 - 15 Branches
5	Distance between fruiting branches	5 - 7 cm	5 - 8 cm	5 - 7 cm	5 - 6 cm
6	Number of vegetative branches per plant	1 - 2 Branches	0 - 2 Branches	0 - 1 Branch	0 - 1 Brach
7	Number of bolls on fruiting branch	2 - 4 Bolls	3 - 4 Bolls	2 - 4 Bolls	2 - 3 Bolls
8	Distance between bolls on the branch	3 - 5 cm	4 - 6 cm	3 - 5 cm	3  - 5 cm
9	Distance between the first boll and the stem	12 - 14 cm	12 - 15 cm	12 - 14 cm	10 - 12 cm
10	Angel of the fruiting branch with the stem	75°	65°	75°	65°
11	Ripe bolls per plant	18 - 23 Bolls	20 - 25 Bolls	18 - 23 Bolls	20 - 22 Bolls
12	Open bolls per plant	15 - 20 Bolls	15 - 20 Bolls	15 - 20 Bolls	18 - 20 Bolls
13	Closed bolls per plant	3 - 5 Bolls	4 - 6 Bolls	3 - 5 Bolls	1 - 2 Bolls
14	Distance of fruiting area	85 - 100 cm	90 - 110 cm	85 - 100 cm	90 - 100 cm
15	Weight of boll	2.8 - 3.0 g	2.8 - 3.2 g	2.8 - 3.0 g	2.8 - 2.9 g
16	Days for the boll to flower	65 - 70	75 - 80	65 - 70	70 - 75
17	Days of the curve of flowering	35 - 50	45 - 60	35 - 50	45 - 60
18	Days the first bolls takes to flower-open	110 - 120	120 - 130	110 - 120	120 - 130
19	Rate of the first harvest after 150 days	70 - 80%	45 - 55%	70 - 80%	60 - 70%
20	Period the plant spends in soil	150 - 165 Days	170 - 190 Days	150 - 165 Days	160 - 170 Days

 

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