BAKU, Azerbaijan, Oct. 29
By Samir Ali – Trend:
This year, record cotton crop to be harvested in Azerbaijan, Vugar Huseynov, spokesman for the Azerbaijani Ministry of Agriculture, told Trend on Oct. 29.
“Cotton was sown in a total area of 100,111 hectares in 20 districts in 2019,” the spokesman said. “The area of plots planted with cotton has been reduced, but despite this, the average yield has increased compared to last year. Last year the average yield reached 17.6 centners per hectare, while this year this figure increased by 7.9 and amounted to 25.5 centners.”
An increase in productivity was facilitated by the observance of the agrotechnical rules, the provision with fertilizers at a high level, harvesting from the fields by using equipment without the usual losses. Over 90 percent of the cotton was harvested by using cotton harvesters in 2018.
The mass harvesting of cotton by using cotton harvesters was launched on September 24, 2019 and more than 255,000 tons of cotton were supplied to the cotton collection centers over the past five weeks, which is 68,000 tons more than last year or 23,000 tons more than the final results of 2018.
Most of cotton was planted in Saatli district (13,741 hectares), Aghjabadi district (10,452 hectares), Bilasuvar district (10,257 hectares), Barda district (10,140 hectares) and Beylagan district (9,706 hectares) this year. Some 144,185 tons of cotton accounted for these districts.