Land preparation is probably the most diverse major program used in cotton production. It includes operations to accomplish mechanical residue disposal and tillage objectives that are specific to land preparation as well as operations that make important contributions to several other major production programs such as fertilization, insect control, disease control and weed control. Although all operations are performed prior to planting, sometimes within a few weeks period and sometimes spread over a 6 month period, their influence will extend all the way through harvesting. A broad general objective of a cotton land preparation program may be To take land and plant residue as it was left at the end of the previous crop and cost effectively rebuild it to provide a seedbed for high speed precision planting that will produce the rapid emergence of a uniform, weed free stand; and a root zone that contains a near capacity level of needed nutritional elements and water, with minimum inhibition to full exploration by the cotton plant root system.

The number of field operations used to produce a crop of cotton excluding insecticide spraying range from 11 to 17. The number of operations involved in land preparation programs commonly ranges from 5 to 7 and occasionally exceeds this number. It seems that the largest variable in the number of operations is the number of disking operations. The cost of land preparation accounts for 5 to 15 percent of total production costs. Although some operations may be performed months apart, it needs to be kept in mind that they are pot independent. Each can have both positive and negative effects on past and future operations. Land preparation is a system and all the parts must work together.