The document summarizes the cotton farming process from planting seeds to harvesting cotton. It discusses how cotton farmers plant seeds in October which take 2-4 weeks to emerge. The cotton crop requires irrigation, fertilizers, and weed/pest control. Harvesting begins in March using large pickers and continues through April. Cotton is then ginned to separate the fibers from seeds and baled. The process supplies cotton which is used to make many products including denim jeans.

1. = DENIM

2. Meet the Team

3. The big questions…..
Q. Why do we love cotton?
A. Because its makes denim
Q. What are the products of cotton?
A. Many things, including denim
Q. How do you grow cotton?
A. With seeds, water, & sunlight
Q. What are Cotton farmers doing to
save water and improve crops?
A. Farming sustainably and applying new
methods to make it achievable for all of
us to own a pair of jeans.

4. Why do we love cotton?
Cotton is a very widely used
product that can be used to
produce many items that
we use day to day.
We love it

5. What are the products of Cotton?
• Almost all parts of the cotton plant are used in
some way, including the cottonseed, lint (raw
cotton fibre), stalk and hull (shell).
For example, popular uses for cotton fibre include
clothing apparel such as denim jeans, socks,
towels, t-shirts, bed sheets and underwear, home
furnishings and industrial/medical products such
as tents, bandages and cotton swabs.

6. • There is more cotton grown globally
than any other non-edible crop.
• Cottonseed oil can used for cooking
or used in a range of industrial products
such as soap, margarine, emulsifiers,
cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, rubber and
plastics.
• The stalk of the cotton plant is
processed for the development of
ethanol in petrol or diesel blends and
also used as mulch to improve soil
organic matter.

7. I LOVE
COTTON!

9. • Australian cotton farmers are continually
striving to improve and development new and
better ways of producing cotton on their
farms.
• For this reason they are great producers and
exporters of cotton

10. Advancements in Technology
At a time when the challenges facing farmers continue to
increase, dryland cotton offers a number of benefits – it
generates new revenue opportunities, provides greater
flexibility in crop rotation strategies and contributes to
sustainable land management.
A farmer from Queensland
is very happy with his
dryland cotton crop.

11. Cotton Producers of the World
Cotton is one of the most important and widely used fibre around
the world. Check out the top 7 producers of cotton in the world.
Each cotton
Cotton Producer Amount of cotton (bales)
bale is 226
China 33 Million kilograms of
India 27 Million processed
U.S.A 18 Million cotton.
Pakistan 10.3 Million That’s
Brazil
Uzbekistan
9.3 Million
4.6 Million
216 Pairs
Australia 4.2 Million
of jeans.

13. ?
How do you GROW a pair of Jeans

14. The Cotton Farming Journey
So…… from year to year our cotton farmers follow
the calendar to develop their crops .
And don’t forget, they use those colder months to
prepare seeds for their next crop as well as using the
land for other farming and grazing.

15. October
Seeds get planted in
beds which have been
prepared in Winter
The first
It takes about 4 to
flower buds
14 days for
(called
seedlings to appear
squares)
after seeds are
appear within
planted
about 35 days

16. November Weeds reduce the
Weed and insect control productivity of
begins. the cotton plants
by competing for
food (nutrients),
water and
sometimes light.
Controlling weeds.
• Cultivation, by digging up of weeds between
the rows of cotton by a machine
called a cultivator
• Chipping, through weeding by hand, which
is time consuming and labour
intensive
• Herbicides sprayed to kill weeds before
planting and during cotton plant growth.

17. December
Irrigation begins and
cotton squares turn to
flowers.
Irrigated cotton
requires:
Dryland cotton requires: . a reliable water
supply available as
. regular and predictable
needed
rainfall . irrigation water
. rainfall in summer . long periods of
. long periods of extreme extreme heat with
heat with low humidity low humidity

18. More Crop per Drop:
Water efficiency
• Australia’s cotton industry is
considered the most water-
efficient in the world, producing
“more crop per drop” than any
other nation at two and a half
times the world’s average yields
• Australia’s cotton growers have
improved their water use
efficiency by 3-4% per year since
2003
• In 2011-12 about 20% of the
cotton crop was rain-grown, the
rest irrigated

19. • Cotton growers have significantly improved their
irrigation systems and practices in the last five years
o 96% had made improvements to their furrow
irrigation systems
o 62% of groundwater irrigators regularly monitor
water quality
o 20% had redesigned fields
o 20% had reduced storage & distribution losses.

20. • Cotton’s average irrigation requirement is 5.2 mega
litres per hectare (5.2 ML/ha), compared to rice
(10.1ML/ha), nurseries, cut flowers and turf (4.2
ML/ha) and fruit and nut trees.
• Cotton is an efficient plant, with the latest industry
data showing approximately 63% of all water is used
by the crop.

21. • Cotton growers are using a range of techniques to
constantly improve water use efficiency including in-field
moisture monitoring, reducing evaporation, scheduling
irrigations, improved soil health and new irrigation
techniques such as overhead sprinklers and drip
irrigation.

22. January
This is a critical time as
the cotton begins to
develop. A good crop
growth needs irrigation
and fertilisers to be timed
What is irrigation?
perfectly. Irrigation means taking
water mechanically
from one place to
another for agriculture.
Water distribution for domestic use,
stock and permanently
planted crops (such as fruit trees) always
have priority over cotton farms.

23. February
Final stage of
development
The cotton is tested to
see if it is ready to be
defoliated and picked
by cutting open the
bolls and looking to see
if the seeds inside are
fully formed.

24. March
Harvesting
begins
Cotton picking was once
done by hand (and still is in
some developing countries)
and was therefore a very
labour intensive task.
Today, it is carried out by
large harvesting
machines. Pickers can
harvest 2, 4 or 6 rows at a
time.

25. April
Picking is in full Ginning
Cotton gins are
swing and so is the factories that
use of cotton gins- complete the first
stage of
a machine that processing cotton
separates the - separating
the lint from the
cotton fibre from seed.
the seeds within it.
Before the gin was invented, the lint and
seed had to be separated by hand. It took
one person a whole day to separate only
half a kilo of the lint from the cottonseed.
Modern gins can separate and bale about
230,000 kilograms of cotton in one day.

26. May to August
After picking, the
cotton stalks are
slashed. Cultivation
begins to prepare for
new crop plantation.
Cottonseed is separated from the lint during
the ginning process. Before the seed can be
crushed for oil extraction or used for
planting future crops, it must be delinted.
This means removing any excess lint still
attached to the seed. These final short fibres
(linters) are used to make many industrial
and domestic products.

27. How do you
GROW a pair of
Jeans?

28. , how do you grow a pair of jeans
The question
is definitely worth asking.
We wear them and take them for granted.
When surveying the school community of
both staff and students at Model Farms
High School, it was determined that even
though not everyone owned a pair of
jeans, they did in fact own something
made of the denim fabric.

30. Did you know…
Cotton is a food and a fibre crop.
We cook with cottonseed oil that’s flavourless
and low in cholesterol and use its fibre for many
things such as medical items, clothing and toys.

31. (Source: 2011 Cotton Grower Survey, CRDC)
Thanks to the team .
Water artworks supplied by yr 9 visual arts students
http://cottonaustralia.com.au/cotton-library/fact-sheets/cotton-
fact-file-water
http://www.csiro.au/en/Outcomes/Food-and-
Agriculture/Sustainable-Cotton-Industry/Cotton-and-water.aspx
http://www.cottongrower.com.au/
http://cottonaustralia.com.au/uploads/resources/Cotton_Austra
lia_Education_Kit_-_Secondary.pdf