Shihezi, Xinjiang, September 12 - From "Cotton Growing Forbidden Zone" to "World's Cotton Warehouse": Digital Cotton Fields Weaving New Prosperity

At the foot of the Tianshan Mountains, golden autumn white waves ripple across the landscape. September marks Xinjiang's cotton harvest season. During this critical period of cotton growth and harvest, Chen Xuegeng often needs to fly thousands of kilometers to Hebei, Shandong, and other provinces to provide technical guidance for cotton fields under his supervision, yet his primary focus remains firmly rooted in Xinjiang's cotton fields.

At 78 years old, Chen Xuegeng is an expert in agricultural machinery design and manufacturing and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He has dedicated himself to grassroots frontier work, continuously engaging in agricultural machinery research and promotion for 58 years. Today, Chen's habit of working in the fields has persisted for over half a century.

"Without going to the fields personally, you cannot develop good agricultural machinery," Chen explains.

On September 11, 2025, at Shihezi University in Xinjiang, Academician Chen Xuegeng is being interviewed by reporters.

This "silver-haired craftsman" from deep within the cotton fields has had a research career that nearly parallels Xinjiang's agricultural mechanization development. In the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Military Reclamation Museum, tour guides take visitors back to the spring of 1950: "At that time, areas north of 44° latitude were considered cotton growing forbidden zones. In early 1950, cotton cultivation achieved success for the first time in the Manas River basin of Xinjiang."

The guide explains that with wooden farming tools and manual harvesting with ox plowing, this initial cotton bumper harvest rewrote the history of Xinjiang being viewed as a "cotton growing forbidden zone," marking the beginning of Xinjiang cotton's "growth journey."

In the 1980s, Xinjiang's overall cotton production level was relatively low. At that time, a single laborer could pick less than 50 kilograms of cotton per day. Lumbar disc herniation became an "occupational disease" among cotton farmers.

Change began with the breakthrough in agricultural mechanization. During his half-century of dedication to the frontier, Chen Xuegeng successively developed cotton film-laying seeders and precision seeders for under-film drip irrigation, which became key technologies and equipment for comprehensive mechanization of cotton production, achieving Xinjiang's leap from dependence on human and animal power to mechanization.

The image shows a residual film recovery machine developed by Academician Chen Xuegeng's team.

Today, Xinjiang's cotton industry has long bid farewell to "human wave tactics." Agricultural fields rarely see human figures, replaced instead by modern machinery such as seeders and cotton pickers. During spring sowing, cotton farmers "feed" cotton seeds to seeding machines and watch them traverse vast cotton fields; during field management, farmers can achieve integrated water and fertilizer smart management with just a few taps on their smartphones, while plant protection drones efficiently handle fertilization and pesticide application; during autumn harvest, among the snow-white cotton bolls, cotton pickers advance in parallel formation, leaving behind huge circular "cotton bales."

Digital technology is thoroughly transforming the appearance of traditional cotton fields.

"Smart cotton fields represent systematic innovation in varieties, equipment, and data," Chen introduces. In 2024, Xinjiang's total cotton production accounted for 92.2% of the national total, with an average yield of 154.9 kilograms per mu. Compared to 1982, total production has increased approximately 23-fold, and yield per mu has also increased 4-fold. In 2024, Xinjiang's cotton production comprehensive mechanization rate reached 95%.

"'The world looks to China for cotton, and China looks to Xinjiang for cotton' - this is more than just praise," Mao Xu, Associate Dean of the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering at Shihezi University, tells reporters. China's cotton output accounts for nearly a quarter of global production, with over 90% of domestic cotton produced in Xinjiang.

Currently, Xinjiang's cotton industry mechanization and digitization technologies are expanding overseas, particularly to Central Asian regions with similar climate conditions. In 2024, Xinjiang cotton cultivation technology was applied, demonstrated, and implemented in Uzbekistan.

Looking at the cotton fields approaching harvest, Chen Xuegeng remains busy among them. This is the "silver sea" he has cultivated for over half a century, and also a microcosm of Xinjiang's agricultural modernization process. He says that in the future, high-quality Xinjiang cotton should not only achieve higher yields and better quality but also build an integrated technology system coordinating superior varieties, methods, and machinery, realizing precision cotton breeding, standardized production, and intelligent management.