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 ?
- (a)Both 1 and 2
- (b)Neither 1 nor 2
- (c)Only 1
- (d)Only 2
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).
- (b)Neither 1 nor 2 — 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)Only 1 — 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)Only 2 — 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.
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.
Statement-pair questions on crop requirements are decided by remembering the band, not the decimal. Different textbooks quote cotton's rainfall need slightly differently — 50–75 cm in some, 50–100 cm in others — and a candidate who has locked on to one number will wrongly mark the other as false. The safe reading is the qualitative one: cotton is the moderate-rainfall crop, sitting between the dry-farming millets and the heavy-rainfall rice and jute, and any figure in the 50–100 cm range is describing the same thing. The second half of the question is easier and should not be overthought: 'mostly a kharif crop' is a hedged statement, and hedged statements in a crop question are almost always the true ones, because Indian agriculture rarely admits an absolute.
- Cotton is sown with the onset of the south-west monsoon over most of India and picked from October onwards — a kharif crop; in parts of Tamil Nadu and the southern coast it is also raised as a winter crop, which is why 'mostly' is the correct qualifier.
- Its water requirement is moderate: standard Indian geography texts give a range of roughly 50–100 cm a year, with 50–75 cm commonly cited as the optimum — heavy rainfall at boll-opening damages the fibre.
- Cotton needs about 210 frost-free days, temperatures of roughly 21–30°C and bright sunshine while the bolls ripen; it is very sensitive to frost, which is what really fixes its northern limit.
- Black regur (Deccan lava) soil of Gujarat and Maharashtra is its classic Indian soil because it holds moisture; the north-western belt of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan grows it on irrigated alluvium.
- Bt cotton, carrying an insect-resistance gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, was approved in 2002 and remains the only genetically modified crop in commercial cultivation in India.
- Rejecting statement 2 because your book says 50–100 cm. Both figures describe the same 'moderate rainfall' requirement, and 50–75 cm is the optimum band inside it.
- Reading 'mostly a kharif crop' as an error because cotton is also grown in winter somewhere. The qualifier is what makes the statement correct.
- Confusing cotton's needs with jute's. Jute wants 150–250 cm of rainfall and high humidity, the opposite end of India's rainfall map from cotton.
UPPSC frames crop geography as two-statement items on season plus climatic requirement; UPSC prefers either a 'which of these are kharif crops' list or a descriptive passage giving temperature, rainfall and frost-free days and asking you to name the crop.
“This crop is of tropical origin. For its development it requires about 210 frost-free days and 50–100 centimetres of rainfall annually. Its adaptability to moist, deep, well-drained soils makes it ideally suited for plantation agriculture.” Which one of the following crops is described in the above passage?
- (a) Cotton
- (b) Jute
- (c) Ragi
- (d) Tea
Answer(a) Cotton
The same rainfall requirement asked in reverse — UPSC gives the figures (210 frost-free days, 50–100 cm of rainfall) and asks you to name the crop, which is the cleanest confirmation that statement 2 here is describing cotton correctly.
Consider the following crops : 1. Cotton 2. Groundnut 3. Rice 4. Wheat Which of these are Kharif crops?
- (a) 1 and 4
- (b) 2 and 3 only
- (c) 1, 2 and 3
- (d) 2, 3 and 4
Answer(c) 1, 2 and 3
Settles statement 1 directly — UPSC counts cotton among the kharif crops alongside groundnut and rice, with wheat as the rabi outlier.
Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and other as Reason (R) : Assertion (A) : Ahmedabad is the largest centre of cotton textile industry in India. Reason (R) : Ahmedabad is located in Major cotton growing region of India, so it has no problem of raw materials. Select the correct answer from the codes given below. Codes :
- (a) Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A)
- (b) Both (A) and (R) are true but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A)
- (c) (A) is true but (R) is false
- (d) (A) is false but (R) is true
Answer(d) (A) is false but (R) is true
The industrial face of the same crop geography — Ahmedabad sits in the black-soil cotton belt of Gujarat, the tract whose warm, moderately watered conditions this question describes, even though it is not India's largest textile centre.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following crops requires the highest annual rainfall?
- (a)Cotton
- (b)Jute
- (c)Bajra
- (d)Wheat
Answer(b) Jute — it needs roughly 150–250 cm of rainfall with high humidity, which is why it belongs to the lower Ganga–Brahmaputra delta. Cotton takes about 50–100 cm, bajra is a dry-farming millet and wheat is a rabi crop of moderate winter rainfall.
- practice — not a real PYQ
A tract has black regur soil, temperatures of 21–30°C, about 60 cm of annual rainfall, more than 200 frost-free days and a bright, dry autumn. Which crop is it best suited to?
- (a)Rice
- (b)Tea
- (c)Cotton
- (d)Jute
Answer(c) Cotton — moisture-retentive black soil, a long frost-free season, moderate rainfall and a dry spell at boll-opening are exactly cotton's requirements. Rice and jute need far more water, and tea needs heavy, well-distributed rainfall on well-drained slopes.