FACTOR AFFECTING COTTON QUALITY: STUDY ACCENTUATE TRAINING NEEDS OF COTTON GROWERS OF DISTRICT BAHAWALNAGAR, PUNJAB, PAKISTAN

The quality of cotton crop is affected seriously during different agronomic practices as well as during picking, transportation, storage and ginning process. The trash contents are the main reason for producing low quality yarn. During the transportation the cotton crop is covered with jute bags, and jute fibre mixes with the cotton crop and creates problem in ginning as well as spinning process which deteriorates the quality of yarn for export purposes. Different varieties of cotton stored together is another factor that influence the quality of crop as the different varieties have different fibre characteristics like staple length, fineness, strength, color grades, trash contents etc. A multi stage random sample of 400 cotton growers was studied through personal interviews with the help of a pre tested validated interview schedule. Data were analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). It was found that the cotton growers needed level of training ranged between low to medium. However, the respondents require training in agronomic practices such as seed rate, sowing method, spacing, time of sowing and plant population.