This aerial photo taken on Nov. 10, 2022 shows a cotton picker at work in Xayar County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The cotton harvest is drawing to an end in Xayar County, a premium-quality cotton production base of China. As of Friday, 1.706 million mu (about 113,733 hectares) of cotton has been harvested here. (Photo by Liu Yuzhu/Xinhua)

 
Chinese state-owned enterprise Sinopec has developed an innovative product to help achieve a better harvest of cotton, a major economic plant in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. 

Having only one quarter the thickness of hair, a thin but resilient film is used to cover the cotton field to protect the plant from unfavorable climate conditions and weeds.

Demand for high-performance films is high in Xinjiang, a region abundant in light and heat but lacking in precipitation.

"As thinness is crucial for ensuring that plants can grow unaffected by the film," stated a company representative quoted in the official Weibo account of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

To avoid harming the field, the film must be durable and made from renewable materials, meeting recycling requirements.

"After 270 days being applied in the cotton field, 90 percent of the film can be recycled, which far exceeds national standards," the representative said.

From research lab to the field, the film has achieved accumulative output of 10,000 tons, which can cover around two million mu (133,333.3 hectares) of field, data from Sinopec showed.

In 2022, cotton output in Xinjiang exceeded 5.39 million tons, a 262,000-tonne increase from the previous year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The autonomous region accounted for 90.2 percent of the country's total cotton output last year.

Xinjiang has ranked first in China for 28 consecutive years in terms of total cotton output, per-unit yield, planting area, and commodity allocation.