‘World’s first cotton’ quality model to aid farmers unveiled

In details published in Field Crops Research​ US researchers say they have produced the world’s first cotton quality module—a part of a larger forecasting tool—allowing cotton producers to better monitor crop quality under changing environmental conditions.

Cotton quality impacts how much—or little—money a farmer makes. Given its wide use in manufacturing, cotton is subjected to federal quality measurements. High-quality cotton fibres mean more income for the producer, while low-quality fibres could spell loss.

The scientists developed a new cotton quality module that works with GOSSYM, a computer application that simulates the processes affecting cotton plant growth and yield. The acronym GOSSYM is derived from the scientific name of cotton, Gossypium. The application simulates cotton growth given selected weather, soil and management strategies. From there, it can predict crop growth, yield and now fibre quality.

GOSSYM was first developed in the 1980s. As new prediction modules are added, its accuracy and application for cotton producers and researchers is enhanced. The new cotton quality module, now a component of GOSSYM, is a result of pioneering research, said. K. Raja Reddy from the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. “While cotton is going through growth cycles, the cotton fibre quality will be affected by environmental conditions like temperature, rainfall and the nutrient quality of the soil and plant. All of these are included in the cotton quality module,” he explained.

The cotton quality module is the culmination of more than a decade of research between Reddy’s team and collaborators at the Nebraska Water Center. Controlled experiments within MAFES Soil Plant Atmospheric Research chambers studied how organs in the cotton plant responded to different environmental variables, with the end goal of predicting fiber quality.

The team has conducted experiments on 40 of the most frequently grown cotton plant varieties, making the quality module a robust tool for farmers. The module will be freely accessible for cotton producers and researchers to use across 74 million acres of cotton fields worldwide. It also has powerful implications in building resiliency to climate change. Researchers can now use the GOSSYM model to make future predictions on how climate shifts will alter cotton quality. Researchers can use this data to recommend changes in agricultural management or to propose new governmental policy.

“If we need irrigation to sustain the way we are growing cotton now, what changes do we need to make? Or, if we continue to use irrigation as we are now, will that be sustainable in the long term?” Reddy asked. “If you want to grow the same quality crop, what are the breeding strategies you might use to make the crops more heat or drought tolerant? These are the types of questions we can answer from the quality module.”

The team is currently working to produce an intuitive user interface that will allow individual farmers and researchers to easily use the quality module to monitor the future of a cotton crop’s quality.