Cotton farming: what's not to love?

The co-owner of Wilkot Boerdery in the Northern Cape, Johan Maree, shares his cotton farming journey with Nichelle Steyn and explains why there is so much more to the crop than meets the eye.

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Johan Maree loves to farm cotton. His journey with cotton began when he joined the family farm in the 1990s and wanted to experiment with the crop. His father gave him a small piece of land to do with as he pleased. “That year, I planted 13ha to cotton,” he says.

Today, he is co-owner of Wilkot Boerdery near Marydale in the Northern Cape, a farm with one of the biggest ginneries in the region.

Maree’s vision to farm cotton took flight when his father was impressed with his first cotton harvest.

“The first cotton land was under a flood irrigation system, and it worked well.”

He then gave Maree 80ha to plant cotton and invested in a picker.

“Picking cotton by hand is too labour-intensive,” he adds. When his father saw first hand the profitability of cotton, he was sold on the idea, and Maree committed to learn more about it.

During this process, he discovered that cotton is a great crop to include in a rotation system, and he now plants it in rotation with maize and soya bean.

Cotton has a deep, fibrous root system that can access water and nutrients from lower soil layers, while also benefitting from the shallow roots of other crops, improving overall soil nutrient utilisation.

“The crop rotation programme worked out beautifully,” Maree says.

Rotating cotton with legumes like soya bean replenishes soil nitrogen, and cotton helps break cycles of pests, diseases and weeds, leading to healthier soil and increased yields for both cotton and the rotational crops.

Maree noticed improvement in soil structure and the enhanced nutrient uptake of his other crops after rotating it with cotton.

“By alternating with shallow-rooted crops, the whole soil profile is utilised more efficiently for nutrient absorption,” he says.

Studies have shown that crop rotation is effective for increasing crop yields compared to monoculture crop production, especially when cotton is in the mix.