Planting, harvesting, and selling is ultimately the aim of the game when it comes to Farming Simulator 22. One of the best crops to get into in Farming Sim 22 is cotton. Cotton can be used for a variety of purposes and can turn a huge profit when carried out properly.
If you don't know how best to do this though, don't worry, we've got you covered with our complete guide to Cotton harvesting in FS22!
Maximize your income in Farming Simulator 22 before Farming Simulator 25 launches later this year.
Field prep
Before you even think about planting any cotton, you need to make sure your field is ready. Depending on the settings you have enabled, you will need to do a few pre-flight checks before taking off.
First up, is ploughing. If you have the "periodic plowing" setting enabled, you may have to plow the field. Go to the map and if the field is red, you need to plow it.
Next, we have liming, as fields need to be properly limed before planting. You will need to purchase lime through the store and also have a fertilizer spreader. If the map is showing your field with a light blue color, it does need to be limed. If you don't have the "liming required" setting enabled, you don't have to worry about this.
It should be noted that neither of these processes is 100% required for planting, but if you don't then your yield will take a big hit when you come to harvest them.
Planting
There aren't many planters that can plant cotton seeds, so you'll probably need to buy a new one for this task. You can see whether a planter can plant cotton seeds by looking to see if the cotton icon is shown in the store. Planters such as the Vaderstad Tempo L 16 are up to the job but will set you back $160,000.
To get the seeds, you need to purchase either a pallet or big bag of seeds. You cannot buy cotton seeds by themselves; you have to get a variety of them. You'll then need to cycle through the seed choices when you're inside your vehicle by pressing Y on PC.
If you have Seasonal Growth activated, you'll need to make sure you plant the cotton at the correct time of the year. Cotton is best planted between February and March and is ready to harvest between October and November. If you don't have this setting enabled, you won't have to worry about this, plant away no matter what the time of year is.
Don't forget to fertilize your field either! This can be checked using the map, the darker the blue, the better fertilized the field is. Double fertilizing the field will give the biggest bonus to yield when it's time to harvest.
Harvesting
After eight months of in-game time, your cotton will be ready to harvest. Before you do so though, you'll have to make sure that you've not got weeds in your field. If you don't have weeds enabled, you can skip this step. To see whether you have weeds in your field, you can see this on your map if it's highlighted in pink.
To deal with the weeds before they become a problem, use an Einbock mechanical weeder. If they're grown to a certain size though, you'll need to spray pesticide using a Hardi sprayer.
You'll need the right equipment to harvest the cotton. This is where you'll need to spare no expense, as cotton requires a specific vehicle to do so. The cheapest cotton picker costs almost half a million dollars, so make sure you've got the money to spend.
Selling and manufacturing
The easiest way to get rid of the harvested cotton is to sell it using the in-game market. This is far from the most profitable though, as cotton can be used to make something else. Yes, of course, it's clothing, cotton can be used to make clothes just like the real world.
Clothing can be made in the spinnery and sold at the tailor shop. To read more about that, head over to our full guide.
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