Effects of Different Planting Patterns on the Quality and Yield of Mechanically Harvested Cotton in Xinjiang: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Cotton is a globally important economic crop and the foundational raw material for the textile industry, and the planting pattern plays a crucial role in determining both the yield and quality of cotton. The results demonstrated that compared with the use of the traditional wide–narrow row (66 + 10 cm) planting pattern, the use of uniform row spacing significantly increased cotton yield (pooled effect size = 0.09, p < 0.05; average yield increase of 9.41%) when interrow distances were homogenized to optimize the population canopy structure. Moreover, this approach comprehensively improved fiber quality, yielding an average increase of 2.02% in cotton fiber length (pooled effect size = 0.02, p < 0.001), an average increase of 8.32% in cotton breaking tenacity (pooled effect size = 0.08, p < 0.001), and an average decrease of 6.76% in the cotton micronaire value (pooled effect size = −0.07, p < 0.001). This study confirms that the use of a uniform row spacing planting pattern is a key agronomic measure for simultaneously achieving high yield and superior fiber quality in cotton, providing both theoretical and practical insights into the optimization of cotton cultivation patterns.