New Intelligent Technologies, New Traditional Industries That Are Enabling Industrial Clusters

In the summer, Xinjiang cotton planting is nearing the end. In the vast cotton fields, the automatic driving precision seeder equipped with the Beidou satellite navigation system runs straight to complete the laying of mulch film, drip irrigation belt, sowing and other work.

In the driver's cab of the planter, the steering wheel automatically calibrates the forward route, and the display marks the working route and progress in real time. Two farmers followed behind the planter to check the conditions of trenching, planting and film laying. Agricultural technicians check and debug the intelligent electric valve along the drip irrigation belt to ensure that the water fertilizer integrated intelligent irrigation system works normally.

In recent years, Xinjiang's cotton industry has become increasingly mechanized, digital and intelligent. From automatic driving sowing, unmanned aerial vehicle patrolling, to intelligent irrigation and pest warning systems, a series of new technologies have enabled cotton production, which has led to the emergence of an efficient, green and sustainable agricultural production mode. New agricultural productivity is helping Xinjiang's cotton quantity and quality to rise steadily.

　　 The operation of agricultural machinery is easy and labor-saving

Gedaquan Village, Baiquan Town, Wusu City, Tacheng Prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is one of the important cotton producing areas in the region. In thousands of acres of cotton fields, a modern machine roars back and forth, replacing the labor that used to require a lot of manpower.

"In the past, sowing and watering all required farmers' attention, which consumed manpower. Now, with intelligent machinery, it is easy and labor-saving." Yan Suwei, director of Gedaquan Village Committee in Baiquan Town, said. In recent years, Xinjiang has comprehensively promoted the use of the automatic driving precision seeder equipped with the Beidou satellite navigation system. Film mulching, drip irrigation belt laying, planting and soil covering have been completed at one time. The linear error per kilometer is not more than 2 cm, and the mechanization rate of cotton planting has reached 100%.

When cotton enters the harvest period, mechanized harvesting is also adopted. In 2023, Xinjiang will invest nearly 7000 cotton pickers to carry out mechanized harvesting operations. The mechanized recovery rate will increase from 35% in 2014 to more than 85% in 2023, and the comprehensive benefits of cotton production will steadily increase.

In the process of promoting the mechanization of cotton production and planting in Xinjiang, domestic machinery plays an increasingly important role. As a leading enterprise of domestic cotton pickers, Xinjiang Boshiran Intelligent Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd. has established four production bases in Wusu City, Urumqi City, Shaya County and Alar City, and its products are mainly sold to Xinjiang, Gansu, Inner Mongolia and other places.

"March has entered the peak production season, and the three line packer and the six line packer are particularly popular in the domestic market," said Huang Xincheng, the relevant person in charge of Xinjiang Bosheran Intelligent Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd.

Enable "Super Cotton Field"

In the scorching sun, in a 2000 mu cotton field in Shuwozi Village, Dafeng Town, Hutubi County, Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture, the drip irrigation belt laid under the plants is like a "vein", delivering water and fertilizer to the roots of each cotton plant accurately and efficiently.

"Before the popularization of digital management, farmland management was mainly based on the personal experience of cotton farmers, lacking precise management and regulation, and the crop quality was not stable enough. Now, with the implementation of digital management, the field management is more accurate and efficient." Yuan Hualing, the owner of the cotton field, said that in the past, one person could not manage 100 mu of land at most, Now it only takes about 10 people to complete the whole process from planting to harvesting on more than 2000 mu of land.

In recent years, with the promotion of "fingertip agriculture" in the north and south of Tianshan Mountains, farmland has been equipped with "smart brain", and the level of crop production and comprehensive income have been significantly improved.

Recently, the "super cotton field" in Xinjiang has successfully started its fourth consecutive year of sowing operations. Three years ago, Ai Haipeng and Ling Lei, two "post-90s" youths, launched the "Super Cotton Field" innovation project in Yuli County, Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, built a digital agricultural platform relying on the Beidou navigation system, installed soil sensors, agricultural recorders and other equipment in the cotton field, and explored the less human and unmanned management mode of 3000 mu of high standard farmland.

Since the first season of the "Super Cotton Field", the two "post-90s" have implemented precise management of cotton fields by means of the Internet of Things, robots, artificial intelligence and other scientific and technological means, greatly reducing the dependence on personal experience, and achieving the effect of income increase and yield increase. The average yield of seed cotton per mu has increased from 254kg in 2021 to 420.9 kg in 2023.

With the help of big data, cloud computing and other information technologies, Xinjiang cotton industry has established an information management system from planting to sales. Cotton farmers can not only remotely monitor the field conditions through mobile phone software, but also timely grasp market information and optimize production decisions.

According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, Xinjiang's total cotton output has been stable at more than 5 million tons for five consecutive years, accounting for 91% of the country's total output in 2023 from 87.3% in 2020, and its area, unit yield, total output, and commodity transfer volume have ranked first in the country for 29 consecutive years.

Self bred high-quality varieties

Seed is the chip of agriculture, and it is also the key link for Xinjiang to make a breakthrough in new cotton productivity. With the continuous advancement of scientific and technological innovation in seed industry, the quality of Xinjiang cotton has further improved.

Xinjiang Changji Jiushenghe Seed Industry Co., Ltd. is a national high-tech enterprise. In recent years, the company has overcome a series of problems in key technologies such as breeding of new varieties with high yield, high quality and stress resistance, standardized rapid propagation and precision processing of seeds, and provided leapfrog technical support for large-scale high-yield, high-quality and efficient production of cotton.

"We have set up three core breeding test stations, one southern breeding station, eight core test stations, and 24 ecological test stations in major cotton planting areas across the country, and cooperated with scientific research institutes such as the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to continuously improve the scientific and technological level of seeds," said Wang Jianfu, the relevant person in charge of Xinjiang Changji Jiushenghe Seed Industry Co., Ltd, At present, the annual processing capacity of the enterprise is more than 5000 tons, and the cotton seeds produced by the enterprise cover an area of about 1.8 million mu in Xinjiang.

Nowadays, more and more seed enterprises have successfully bred a series of new cotton varieties with high yield, high quality and strong adaptability by strengthening cooperation with scientific research institutions and using modern biotechnology, gene editing and other technologies to accelerate the exploration and utilization of fine genes.

"In recent years, we have planted breakthrough cotton varieties such as Yuanmian 11 and Yuanmian 8, which have the characteristics of high quality and high yield, and can fully meet the requirements of middle and high-end production enterprises for high-quality cotton," said He Hongtao, head of Shawan Shuangquan Agricultural Professional Cooperative.

In order to further support cotton breeding, Xinjiang will increase financial support for scientific research on cotton breeding, and plan to invest 15 million yuan to build a cotton stress resistant biological breeding platform to improve the stress resistance of major cotton varieties in Xinjiang; Scientific research institutions and colleges and universities are encouraged to carry out research on cotton genetic improvement, stress resistant molecular breeding and other cutting-edge technologies. At present, self bred varieties account for more than 90% of the main cotton varieties in Xinjiang.

The excellent cotton seeds not only greatly increased the yield, but also helped further improve the cotton quality in Xinjiang. According to the monitoring data released by China Fiber Quality Monitoring Center, from April 2023 to February 2024, the spinnability of cotton in Xinjiang has significantly improved, and the quality has continued to improve, reaching the best level in nearly five years.