How to Harvest Long Staple Cotton

Survey your crop for the appearance of bolls -- the fruit of the cotton plant -- by the splitting of their carpal casings. This generally occurs 20 weeks from planting. Inspect plants at random for how many nodes -- or branches -- appear above the cracked boll closest to the stem. Five or more is optimal for harvest. Proceed to defoliation only if 60 to 70 percent of your bolls have appeared.

Apply chemical defoliant to your crops. This can be done manually, by tractor attachment or, for the largest farms, by airplane. This procedure causes the leaves to fall from the plant, making harvest easier on mechanical pickers. Disburse ten gallons per acre with ground applicators and five gallons per acre by air.

Remove the cotton lint from the plants with a spindle picker. Maintain uniformity and efficiency of harvest by keeping sufficient tire pressure and setting the row unit tilt properly. This involves keeping the front spindles rolling an inch above the soil and the rear spindles only slightly higher. The spindles are tines that actually pull the cotton from the plant.

Insert gathered cotton lint into the module builder. This box-like machine compresses the lint into modules -- storage units -- that consist of 10 to 15 bales of cotton, ridding it of excess moisture. Set the control panel so that the tamper -- the flat, moving component -- impacts the cotton at full force from a height of one and a half feet. Store the compacted cotton modules in a clean, level and dry location.