ESTIMATION OF COTTON YIELD USING TWO-PHASE SAMPLING APPROACH Nitin Varshney 1* , Yogesh Garde 1 , Alok Shrivastava 1 , Vipul Shinde 2 and Vishal Thorat 3 1 Department of Agricultural Statistics, N.M. College of Agriculture, N.A.U., Navsari, Gujarat, India. 2 Department of Agricultural Engineering, N.M. College of Agriculture, N.A.U., Navsari, Gujarat, India. 3 Department of Agribusiness Economics and Finance, A.A.B.M.I., N.A.U., Navsari, Gujarat, India. *Corresponding author E-mail : nitin.caw@nau.in (Date of Receiving-01-01-2024; Date of Acceptance-12-03-2024) Cotton, a multiple picking crop, is grown in around nine States in India. The existing procedure of estimation of average yield of cotton is based on crop cutting experiment (CCE) approach, which utilizes data on all pickings, is cumbersome and cost prohibitive. The two-phase sampling approach can be gainfully employed in this case by collecting data on picking, which has highest correlation with the total pickings yield on a larger sample and the total pickings yield data on a smaller sample. Accordingly, a stratified two-stage two- phase sampling design has been proposed for selection of representative sample and an appropriate estimation procedure, based on two-phase sampling regression estimator, has been developed for estimation of average yield of cotton at district level. Utilizing the data of survey conducted in the Aurangabad and Amravati district of Maharashtra State and Adilabad and Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh wherein third picking data was collected on a larger sample and total pickings yield data on a smaller sample. An expression for optimum number of villages for larger and smaller samples has been obtained by minimizing cost subject to fixed percentage standard error of the estimates. These have been worked out empirically as well. Key words : Yield, Cotton, Multiple picking, Sampling methodology, Two-phase sampling, Percentage standard error, Crop Cutting Experiment (CCE). Plant Archives Vol. 24, No. 1, 2024 pp. 1645-1650 e-ISSN:2581-6063 (online), ISSN:0972-5210 Plant Archives Journal homepage: http://www.plantarchives.org DOI Url : https://doi.org/10.51470/PLANTARCHIVES.2024.v24.no.1.229 ABSTRACT Introduction Cotton is a multiple picking crop, which is grown in eleven states in India. Cotton is an important fibre yielding crop of global importance. It is one of the most important cash crops and accounts for around 25% of the total global fibre production. It is also known as the “White Gold” or the “King of Fibres”. India also has the distinction of having the largest area under cotton cultivation in the world i.e. about 126.07 lakh hectares. In India, the states of Gujarat (103.84 lakh bales), Maharashtra (83.35 lakh bales) and Telangana (54.44 lakh bales) are the leading cotton producing states having the predominantly tropical wet and dry climate. Cotton crop is harvested in the form of a number of pickings. The total number of pickings may vary from state to state. It varies from 2-3 pickings to 10 pickings. In the raw material consumption basket of the Indian textile industry, the proportion of cotton is around 59%. It plays a major role in sustaining the livelihood of an estimated 5.8 million cotton farmers and 40-50 million people engaged in related activities such as cotton processing and trade. The existing procedure of estimation of average yield of cotton is based on crop cutting experiment (CCE) conducted under General Crop Estimation Survey (GCES), which utilizes data on all pickings. But this existing procedure is cumbersome and cost prohibitive. The two-phase sampling (double sampling) approach can be gainfully employed in this case by collecting data on picking which has highest correlation with the total picking yield on a larger sample as auxiliary variable and the total picking yield data on smaller sample. Accordingly, a stratified two-stage two phase sampling design is a very