Cotton Cultivation Guide: Planting to Harvest in 8 Steps

Cotton cultivation runs from planting into soil of at least 60 to 65°F to harvest about 130 to 160 days later. The soil temperature comes from the National Cotton Council’s planting guide and the season length from the National Cotton Council’s guide to cotton growth and development. This cotton cultivation guide walks through the eight jobs of a season in order: field choice, soil prep, variety and seed, planting, nutrients, water, pests and harvest.

Each step gives dated numbers from USDA, FAO, the National Cotton Council and university extension services. You also get a nitrogen calculator for your own yield goal, charts of stage length and crop water use, and a table of what to check at each stage.

Cotton cultivation at a glance

Cotton is a warm-season perennial grown as an annual row crop. Two species dominate commercial fields. USDA’s Economic Research Service says upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) makes up 97% of U.S. production and Pima, the extra-long staple type, about 3%.

In the United States, cotton grows in 17 southern “Cotton Belt” states from Virginia to California. It is planted from March to June and harvested from August to December. Texas grows about 40% of the U.S. crop, ahead of Georgia, Mississippi and Arkansas, per the ERS cotton sector overview. Australia is the other big English-speaking grower, with irrigated and dryland crops in New South Wales and Queensland.

One U.S. bale holds about 480 pounds of clean lint. That is enough for more than 200 pairs of jeans or 1,200 T-shirts, says ERS. World output is forecast at 118.0 million bales for the 2026/27 season, down 3.4% from the year before, in the ERS cotton market outlook.

Step 1: Pick a field and season that suit cotton

Cotton needs heat more than anything else. Growers count heat in DD60s: each day’s average temperature above 60°F. The National Cotton Council puts planting to harvest-ready at 2,200 to 2,600 DD60s in the Mid-South, or 130 to 160 days.

That heat need decides where cotton cultivation works. The hot, dry deserts of Arizona and California’s San Joaquin Valley give a long season and dry falls. The Mid-South and Southeast get the heat but also humid weather and more pests. Short, cool seasons, such as most of Canada and northern Europe, rarely build up enough heat units to open bolls before frost.

Good cotton fields share four traits:

• Deep, well-drained soil that warms early in spring.
• Full sun with no shade from trees or buildings.
• Reliable rain or an irrigation supply for mid-summer.
• A frost-free window long enough for the heat units above.

For a closer look at climate, soil and temperature limits, see our guide to cotton growth factors and sensors.

Growth stages of cotton and how long each takes

The NCC splits the season into five phases: germination and emergence, seedling establishment, leaf and canopy growth, flowering and boll development, and maturation. The table below shows days and heat units for a Mid-South crop, adapted from Oosterhuis (1990).

Cotton is indeterminate. It keeps adding nodes and fruiting branches while it has water and nutrients. That is why timing of water, nitrogen and growth regulators matters so much in the second half of the season.

Chart

Days in each cotton growth stage

Days, U.S. Mid-South crop, low and high end of the range

Step 2: Prepare the soil

Soil work starts the autumn before. In the NCC guide on establishing the crop, growers choose between conventional tillage, no-till, strip-till and stale seedbeds. No-till and strip-till let you plant when the soil is closer to ideal. A winter cover crop shields seedlings from wind and blowing sand.

Plow pans block roots and water. NCC suggests subsoiling with shanks set 16 to 18 inches deep, before fall bedding or in spring. Dig up old cotton roots to check: a root that turns sideways at the same depth across the field points to a pan.

Take a soil sample before you plan fertilizer. pH, phosphorus, potassium and residual nitrate decide what the crop needs. Practices that build organic matter help too; our pages on soil fertility and regenerative soil practices cover cover crops and residue.

In some areas with pink bollworm, the law requires growers to shred and plow down stalks after harvest. Combined with a legal planting date, NCC says this gives a 90-day host-free period that stops the pest from overwintering. Check your state’s rules.

▶ Common hurdles in cotton cultivation, from pests to water management, and ways farmers raise yields. · 7:38

Step 3: Choose varieties and seed

Variety choice affects early vigor, disease tolerance and fiber quality. NCC advises looking at three-year averages from unbiased trials, not one top result at one site. Try new varieties on no more than about 10% of the farm at first. Spread the rest across three or four proven varieties of different maturity to spread harvest and weather risk.

Look for resistance or tolerance to the problems in your fields: Fusarium or Verticillium wilt, root-knot nematode or bacterial blight.

Fiber quality is a close second to yield, NCC notes, because buyers pay on staple length, strength and micronaire. Pima needs hot, dry conditions and earlier planting, while upland suits warm to hot areas with dry falls and later planting, according to ERS. Pick the type that your gin and buyers handle.

Seed quality matters as much as genetics. Add the standard warm germination and the cool germination percentages to get a vigor index. NCC rates 160 or more as excellent, 140 to 159 good, 120 to 139 fair and below 120 poor. Use the highest vigor seed for the earliest, coolest plantings.

Step 4: Plant at the right soil temperature and density

Plant into warm, moist soil of at least 60 to 65°F at seed depth. NCC calls a mid-morning soil temperature of 68°F for three days in a row, with a good five-day forecast, ideal. Soil below 50°F has been linked to chilling injury in seedlings before they emerge.

Under good conditions, seedlings emerge after five to ten days, or 50 to 60 DD60s. Squares (flower buds) appear about four to five weeks after planting.

Row spacing and plant population

Conventional rows are 38 to 40 inches apart. Narrow rows of 15 to 30 inches can bring earliness where plants stay small, but may need new equipment. The final stand should have at least about two plants per foot of row on 38 to 40 inch rows, about 30,000 plants per acre. NCC cites research showing uniform stands of 30,000 to 60,000 plants per acre can give similar yields, because cotton compensates for gaps.

Precise planting pays. NCC reports that an efficient, well-timed planting can save 10 to 25% on seed, seed treatment and technology fees.

Step 5: Feed the crop with a soil-test-based plan

A current soil test is the best starting point, says the NCC guide to cotton soil fertility. The same page lists typical nutrient amounts in the above-ground plant for each bale of lint: about 62 lb of nitrogen, 61 lb of potash (K2O) and 22 lb of phosphate (P2O5). The seed cotton removed at harvest carries 35 to 40 lb of nitrogen per bale.

Chart

Nutrients in the cotton plant per bale of lint

lb in above-ground plant (leaves, stems and fruit) per 480-lb bale

Uptake is not the same as the fertilizer rate. Soil nitrate, the previous crop, manure and irrigation water all supply some nitrogen. Too much nitrogen late in the season makes rank plants, delays maturity and makes defoliation harder.

Time nitrogen so the crop has enough in every phase of growth and fruiting, without a surplus late in the season. Follow the product label and your local extension service’s rate guide, and get professional advice for your soil.

Organic systems use the same nutrient budget, built from manure, compost and legumes. See our overview of organic farming practices.

Try the numbers for your own farm below.

Step 6: Water cotton by growth stage

Cotton is drought tolerant, but stress at the wrong time costs yield and fiber quality. The NCC water management guide says hot, dry desert fields need 40 to 50 inches of water a year, while humid, temperate areas need 20 to 30 inches. In many parts of the Cotton Belt, summer rain is enough to grow cotton without irrigation.

FAO uses crop coefficients (Kc) to turn reference evapotranspiration into crop water use. In FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper 56, cotton starts at a Kc of 0.35, peaks at 1.15 to 1.20 in mid-season and falls to 0.70 to 0.50 at the end. The same paper lists stage lengths of 30, 50, 60 and 55 days for a crop planted in March to May in places such as California and Egypt.

When water stress hurts most

Avoid stress from first square onward. NCC recommends being near field capacity at early bloom and keeping water up at least through cutout. Severe stress on bolls up to 30 days old does the most damage: heavy boll shed, short staple and high micronaire. Stress on older bolls gives immature fiber. Once bolls open, dry soil only hastens maturity.

A slight bluish tinge on leaves shows up before wilting. Soil moisture sensors, crop water use estimates and node counts give earlier, more reliable signals. Researchers have tested sensor-based systems that schedule deficit irrigation for cotton automatically, as described in a Frontiers in Plant Science study.

Irrigation options include furrow or flood, sprinklers and subsurface drip. NCC notes that flood or furrow is the most common method. Low-pressure drip can be a cheaper alternative to standard subsurface drip.

Chart

Cotton crop coefficient (Kc) through the season

FAO-56 Kc at stage boundaries, days after planting, March to May planting (California, Egypt)

Step 7: Scout for pests, weeds and disease

Pests change with each stage, so scouting must too. The UC IPM cotton guidelines split the season into preplant, emergence to seedling, squaring to first bloom, first bloom to first open boll, and open boll to harvest, each with its own pest list.

• Seedling: thrips, spider mites, aphids, cutworms and seedling diseases.
• Squaring: plant bugs such as lygus, which cause squares to flare and drop, plus aphids and mites.
• Bloom and boll fill: bollworms, stink bugs, whiteflies and aphids, which can make lint sticky late in the season.
• Weeds: early control matters most; herbicide-resistant weeds need several modes of action.

New pests appear too. The two-spot cotton leafhopper, or cotton jassid, reached cotton in Florida in late 2024. By the end of 2025 it was in nearly every cotton county in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, and had been found in Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and Texas, says Alabama Cooperative Extension. Southeastern entomologists set a preliminary threshold of one nymph per leaf. The University of Florida fact sheet describes how to identify it.

Use thresholds from your state extension service before you spray. Follow the product label and local rules for every insecticide, herbicide and growth regulator.

▶ Bollworm types and the pink bollworm life cycle, and how farmers track the damage. · 16:21

Step 8: Defoliate, harvest and gin

The NCC harvest management guide gives two common timing rules. Defoliate when about 60% of bolls are open, or when the nodes above the uppermost cracked boll (NACB) average four or less. Both rules assume the plants are aging normally, so check the field as well.

Treat only as much as you can pick in 7 to 12 days. Defoliants work best on mature cotton in warm, sunny weather and poorly in a cold snap. Typical spray volumes are 5 to 7 gallons per acre by air or 12 to 15 by ground for good coverage. Follow the label for every harvest aid.

U.S. cotton is picked by machine. Seed cotton is pressed into modules or round bales and sent to a gin. The gin separates fiber from seed, cleans it and presses the lint into bales. A small sample from each bale goes to a USDA classing office, which grades the quality the cotton is sold on, per the ERS cotton sector overview.

Cotton labor needs and farm size

Machines changed cotton from a labor-heavy crop to one of the most mechanized. Hand picking once took huge crews; the Handbook of Texas traces how mechanical strippers and spindle pickers replaced hand picking in Texas. Labor is still tight at planting and harvest, and many farms now rely on custom operators and fewer, larger machines. Our article on the U.S. farm labor shortage looks at wider effects.

Larger cotton farms also use more precision tools. USDA’s ERS report Precision Agriculture in the Digital Era found automated guidance on 64.5% of U.S. cotton acres in 2019, automated section control on 41% and yield maps on 15.2%.

Chart

Precision tools on U.S. cotton acres

Percent of U.S. cotton planted acres, 2019

Sustainable cotton cultivation practices

Sustainable cotton is mostly good agronomy done carefully. Practices backed by the sources above include:

• Reduced tillage and cover crops to protect soil and seedlings, with burndown timed to avoid pest build-up.
• Soil-test-based fertility so nitrogen matches yield goals and little is left at season end.
• Irrigation by crop stage using soil moisture and FAO-56 crop coefficients.
• IPM thresholds instead of calendar spraying, to protect beneficial insects.
• Crop rotation with grains or legumes to break disease and nematode cycles.

Our pages on the pros and cons of modern farming and precision farming in Australia go further.

Using satellite data in cotton cultivation

Satellite vegetation maps show where the canopy is growing slower or faster than the rest of a field. In cotton, that helps you choose where to scout first, find uneven irrigation and see when parts of a field reach cutout. Images show plant change, not the cause, so a field check is still needed.

Farmonaut Satellite + AI Farm Monitoring System gives vegetation and moisture index maps for fields you draw, on web, Android and iOS. Developers can use the satellite and weather API documentation or the API console, and the app link opens the mobile app.

▶ A full walkthrough of satellite crop monitoring: reading NDVI maps and spotting crop stress on your own field. · 19:36

How we checked the numbers

We used the National Cotton Council’s integrated crop management guides for stage timing, planting, fertility, water and harvest. Crop water use comes from FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper 56. U.S. production facts come from USDA ERS, and pest notes from UC IPM, Alabama Extension and the University of Florida. All figures were checked in October 2026. Stage lengths and heat units are regional averages; your local extension service has figures for your area.

Related pages on our site: regenerative agriculture in Chico; drought in Germany; dry-weather gardening tips; young farmer aid in Aragon; farm machinery in Algeria; agri cooperation areas; nitrogen fertilizer alternatives; EU energy policy; Madeira eco-tourism.

FAQ

What are the factors essential for growing cotton?

Cotton needs a long, warm season of about 2,200 to 2,600 DD60s, full sun, deep well-drained soil, soil at least 60 to 65°F at planting, enough water from first square to cutout, balanced nutrients and pest control (NCC).

How much water does cotton need?

NCC puts it at 40 to 50 inches a year in hot, dry deserts and 20 to 30 inches in humid, temperate areas. Peak use comes at flowering and boll fill, when the FAO crop coefficient reaches 1.15 to 1.20.

How long does cotton take from planting to harvest?

About 130 to 160 days in the U.S. Mid-South, according to the NCC table adapted from Oosterhuis (1990). First flowers come 60 to 70 days after planting.

What causes flare squares in cotton?

Flared squares are often caused by plant bugs such as lygus or fleahoppers feeding on young buds, which then turn yellow and drop. Heat and water stress can also cause square shed. Scout and use local thresholds.

Is cotton a renewable resource?

Yes. Cotton is a plant fiber grown again each season. Its footprint depends on how water, fertilizer and pesticides are managed.

Can you grow cotton in Canada or the UK?

Not as a field crop in most areas. Cotton needs a long frost-free season with high heat units to open its bolls, which short, cool summers rarely give. Small garden plants may flower in a greenhouse.