Technology ("science of craft", from Greek τέχνη, techne, "art, skill, cunning of hand"; and -λογία, -logia[2]) is the sum of techniques, skills, methods

COTTON CULTIVATION IN THE USA

Successful cultivation of cotton requires a long growing season, plenty of sunshine and water during the period of growth, and dry weather for harvest. In general, these conditions are met within tropical and warm subtropical latitudes in the northern and southern hemispheres. The U.S. Cotton Belt stretches from northern Florida to North Carolina and westward to California.

In the United States, production of the crop for a given year starts soon after harvesting the preceding fall, when many cotton farmers chop or shred the stalks with machines. The residue is plowed under and the land usually left rough until spring tillage. Planting time varies from the beginning of February in southern Texas to the beginning of June in the northern sections of the Cotton Belt.

A number of methods, chemical and mechanical, have been used to control weeds and grass, including intensive spraying of herbicide before and after planting. The cultivator, rotary hoe, and flame cultivator are also used to destroy weeds.

Approximately 95 percent of the cotton in the United States is now harvested mechanically with spindle-type pickers or strippers. Pickers are used extensively in irrigated lands. The picker has vertical drums equipped with wire spindles that engage and pull the cotton from open bolls. Strippers are used primarily in western Texas and western Oklahoma. They are “once-over” machines that pull the bolls from the plant.