Cotton-Based Cropping Systems and Their Impacts on Production

Cotton farming symbolizes single largest use of arable land for fiber production on earth, and cotton-based cropping systems are practiced under diverse agro-climatic environments in more than 100 countries. World cotton production has escalated in recent past and has undergone numerous technological transformations and socioeconomic interventions in quest of productivity and sustainability. Cotton-based cropping systems range from low-input rainfed systems in Australia and Africa to highly mechanized intensive farming systems in the United States, Brazil, and China. In India and Pakistan, multiplicity of cotton varieties, weather extremes, uncertainty of climatic optima, spurious seeds, non-remunerative markets, and low quality plus adulterated chemicals or pesticides are key problems leading to low yields besides net profits in otherwise high productivity cotton-based cropping systems. Resource conserving, eco-efficient, climate smart, and economically viable cropping systems that rotate/intercrop cotton with cereals, oilseeds, and legumes are required. Relay or intercropping and crop rotations will lead to the ecological intensification of cotton-based cropping systems. An ideal cotton-based cropping system should aim at higher yields and net profits per unit area, bring stability into the production system, ensure optimal utilization of the available resources, be able to meet domestic requirements of farmer, and avoid ecological uncertainty in the form of shifts in insect pests or weed populations or evolution of pesticide resistance in the long run. Another area requiring significant improvement is integrating current curative pest management options with other cultural methods to avoid insecticide/herbicide resistance development in an era of transgenics. The transgenics have their own pros and cons, and due deliberations in the best interest of agro-ecosystem sustainability and small landholders be made with involvement of all stakeholders. Biotech seed industry should plan safe mechanisms for herbicide-tolerant crop development to evade resistance development or gene introgression in weeds. Productivity and profitability of cotton-based cropping systems needs to be explored with greater ecological orientation under conventional and organic management systems. This chapter documents the productivity and resource use efficiency of cotton-based cropping systems based on existing agronomic and experimental evidences. Crop growth and development, productivity, quality, resource use efficiencies, and profitability of various systems have been discussed at the plant, field, and system levels.