Xinjiang harvest breaks China's cotton yield record

URUMQI -- A vast cotton field in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region has broken the country's large-scale mechanical harvest cotton yield record.

The new record of 11,154 kilograms per hectare was set in a 7.1-hectare cotton field in the Mongolian autonomous prefecture of Bortala.

Harvesting and output data were monitored and evaluated by the Xinjiang regional department of agriculture and rural affairs, alongside experts from the National Agro-Tech Extension and Service Center, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and Shihezi University.

Wang Daguang, an agro-tech extension and services researcher in Bortala's Jinghe county, said that the average local cotton yield was just 4,500 kilograms per hectare in the 1990s.

The new record will encourage cotton growers to introduce more science and technology to their agricultural development.

This year, Bortala has 92,667 hectares of cotton fields, making it one of Xinjiang's leading cotton-producing areas.