Consider the following statements with reference to cotton crops :
1. Cotton is mostly a Kharif crop.
2. Cotton crop requires moderate amounts of rainfall varying between 50 – 75 cm annually.
Which of

Question

Consider the following statements with reference to cotton crops :
1. Cotton is mostly a Kharif crop.
2. Cotton crop requires moderate amounts of rainfall varying between 50 – 75 cm annually.
Which of the above statements is/are correct ?

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, Both 1 and 2. Statement 1 is true. Over almost all of India cotton is sown as the south-west monsoon arrives — April to June, depending on the tract — and picked from October onwards, which is the definition of a kharif crop; the word 'mostly' is doing honest work, because parts of Tamil Nadu and the southern coast also raise cotton as a winter crop under irrigation. Statement 2 is true as the examiner intends it. Cotton is a moderate-rainfall crop, and that is the point being tested: unlike rice or jute it does not want a soaking, and heavy rain while the bolls are opening spoils the fibre. Indian geography texts put its requirement at roughly 50 to 100 cm a year, with the optimum commonly quoted in the 50–75 cm band that this statement uses, so the figure sits squarely inside the accepted range rather than contradicting it. What actually limits cotton is not water but heat and frost: it needs high temperature, about 210 frost-free days and bright sunshine while the bolls ripen. With both statements standing, the answer is (a).

Why the other options are wrong — (b) Both statements are correct, so rejecting both is the worst available reading. Cotton is sown with the monsoon in most of India, and 'moderate rainfall' is precisely the phrase every standard text uses for its water requirement.  (c) This is the trap for a candidate who has memorised '50–100 cm' from one book and therefore rejects '50–75 cm' as a wrong number. The two are not in conflict — 50–75 cm is the optimum band inside the wider 50–100 cm range, and the commission's key accepts it.  (d) It rejects the sounder of the two statements. Cotton is unambiguously a kharif crop over most of the country — sown with the monsoon and harvested from autumn — which is why UPSC has repeatedly listed it among kharif crops alongside rice and groundnut.

Concept: Cotton is a tropical and sub-tropical crop of warmth, sunshine and moderate water. It wants a long growing season of roughly 210 frost-free days, temperatures of about 21–30°C, and around 50–100 cm of rainfall — enough to establish the plant, but a dry, bright spell when the bolls open, because rain at picking stains and weakens the fibre. Its classic Indian home is the black regur soil weathered from the Deccan lavas, which retains moisture through dry spells; on the alluvium of Punjab, Haryana and northern Rajasthan it is grown instead on canal and tube-well irrigation.

State PCS 2024 Q36 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q36 — Geography PYQ with Answer