The world's leading natural fiber crop, domesticated independently at least four times, in the Indus Valley, Africa, Mesoamerica and the Andes. Cotton clothed the ancient world, drove the industrial revolution's mills, and, with the cotton gin, entrenched plantation slavery in the American South. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Scientific NameGossypium hirsutum (upland cotton, the dominant commercial species) 1 Domestication RegionDomesticated independently in the Old and New Worlds (Indus Valley, Africa, Mesoamerica, coastal Peru) 1 Domesticated When (Circa)by circa 5000 BC in both hemispheres 1 Era
Era (category) Era (category)Chalcolithic (Copper Age) 1 Connections
Associated With
The boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis) is historically the most destructive insect pest of cultivated cotton in North America.
Cash Crop, Concepts Cotton was among the defining cash crops of the colonial and antebellum plantation economy.
Source Cash Crop (Wikipedia)
The cotton bollworm is one of the most economically damaging insect pests of cultivated cotton globally.
Source Cotton Gin (Wikipedia)
the cotton picker mechanically harvests seed cotton from the plant
The pink bollworm is a major quarantine insect pest that bores into cotton bolls, damaging lint and seed.
The reniform nematode (Rotylenchulus reniformis) is a major yield-limiting root pathogen of cotton in the southern United States.
The silverleaf whitefly is a major direct-feeding and virus-transmitting pest of cotton in the US Cotton Belt.
The twospotted spider mite is a major, broadly polyphagous pest of cotton, among many other crops.
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Cotton (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundationlead description or Wikipedia lead (primary-uses)
The world's leading natural fiber crop, domesticated independently at least four times, in the Indus Valley, Africa, Mesoamerica and the Andes.
History section
The domestication of Gossypium hirsutum, in Mexico, is dated to between around 3400 and 2300 BC. Cultivation of G. barbadense from a find in Ancon, Peru has been dated to c. 4200 BC. Cotton is naturally a perennial but is grown as an annual.
View the Source Cash Crop (Wikipedia)
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