A CAAMS cotton harvesting machine works in a field of Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. [Photo/Sinomach WeChat Official Account]

China is the world’s second-largest cotton producer, and Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region is the largest cotton-producing area in the country. The region is well known for its premium long-fiber cotton, which is popular in domestic and global markets.

Over the past 20 years, the cotton-picking machines developed by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Mechanization Sciences (CAAMS) affiliated to Sinomach have greatly lowered the labor strength, improved efficiency in the cotton production of Xinjiang, and helped the farmers increase yields as well as their income through continuous progress in agricultural technology.

An advanced cotton picking machine moves in a cotton field, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. [Photo/Sinomach WeChat Official Account]

The timeline below will shed light on the important contributions made by CAAMS to the development of mechanical cotton picking in China.

In 2002, CAAMS developed the 4MZ-5 horizontal spindle type self-propelled picker, which lifted the curtain on the popularization of machine-picked cotton in China.

In 2010, CAAMS tailored the 4MZ-3 cotton picker for small plots of cotton-growing areas in Xinjiang, improving the efficiency of cotton picking and ensuring that the rate of complete gathering would exceed 93 percent. It has played a crucial role in increasing cotton output in Xinjiang.

In 2013, the institution independently developed the 4MZ-6 baler-attached cotton harvester with advanced technologies and automatic systems, meeting the planting requirements of the existing cotton seeders and improving operational efficiency.

It rolled out a more advanced 4MZ-6 box-type cotton picker in 2017, and soon launched the 4MY-6 integrated cotton machine that realized the joint operation of cotton picking, conveying, gathering, packing, wrapping and unloading without stopping in 2020.

The machine is popular in cotton-producing areas in Xinjiang, and further improves the safety of cotton storage while reducing shipping costs.

Advancing mechanized harvesting in Xinjiang, the 4MZ-3A/3B self-propelled intelligent cotton picker newly developed by CAAMS in 2021 is now on the market. The product with high safety and efficiency adopts intelligent control, whole process fault warning, and one-touch cotton unloading.

Based on 20 years of efforts in the research and development of cotton pickers, CAAMS will continue to upgrade agricultural machinery and equipment and strive to build a national high quality commodity cotton production base, contributing to agricultural and rural modernization in Xinjiang.

Cotton spinning machines work in the plant. [Photo/Sinomach WeChat Official Account]

Mechanical equipment research and development and manufacturing in textile machinery is a pillar industry of Sinomach. Giving full play to its competitive edges, the company continues to boost the innovation of intelligent and automatic processes, and brings China’s textile machinery to a higher level.

Packaged and piled-up cotton waits for processing. [Photo/Sinomach WeChat Official Account]

Jingwei Textile Machinery Co Ltd, an affiliate of Sinomach subsidiary China Hi-tech Group Corporation, has supplied about 10 million pieces of textile equipment to Xinjiang farmers, and added a value of about 150 million yuan ($22.83 million) to the cotton and yarn trade in the region.

Textile equipments developed by Jingwei Textile Machinery [Photo/Sinomach WeChat Official Account]

More magnificent progress in cotton spinning has been made by another subsidiary of Sinoamch －Wuxi Jingwei Textile Technology Testing Co － which has been producing and testing Xinjiang cotton for more than 15 years.

The company developed the first generation of carding machine as well as modern complete sets of spinning equipment and completed a project themed on “New Generation Textile Equipment” supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China.

It has been tasked with national major textile machinery research and testing along with technical services. It has also built up a digital workshop for cotton spinning as part of a national intelligent manufacturing development special project.