Two agricultural industry standards jointly developed by the Cotton Smart Cultivation innovation team of the Cotton Research Institute of CAAS, together with the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Xinjiang Yuxiang Huyang Chemical Co., Ltd., the Anhui Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Zhengzhou University and other institutions — "Technical Requirements for Monitoring Quantitative Indicators of Cotton Plant Architecture and Maturity" (NY/T 5656-2026) and "Technical Requirements for IoT-Based Monitoring of Cotton Growth and Cotton Field Environment Information" (NY/T 5657-2026) — have been approved by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (Announcement No. 1056) and will take effect on February 1, 2027.

"Technical Requirements for Monitoring Quantitative Indicators of Cotton Plant Architecture and Maturity" proposes for the first time using the transmittance of photosynthetically active radiation through the cotton canopy (TPAR) to quantitatively describe plant architecture, and using the rates at which plant height, fruit branches and flowering occur to quantitatively describe maturity. It specifies monitoring point setup, sensor parameters, data collection frequency and calculation methods, defines thresholds for quantitative plant architecture and maturity indicators at key growth stages (seedling, squaring, flowering and boll-setting, and boll-opening), and establishes a digital coding system for maturity indicators such as squares, flowers, young bolls, mature bolls, open bolls, rotten bolls and shedding. It applies to plot-scale monitoring.

"Technical Requirements for IoT-Based Monitoring of Cotton Growth and Cotton Field Environment Information" specifies a four-layer IoT system architecture of "sensors–collection nodes–gateway–cloud platform," defines cotton growth monitoring content (canopy photosynthetically active radiation, canopy leaf temperature, growth progress, coverage) and cotton field environment monitoring content (soil environment indicators and field microclimate), and systematically regulates monitoring site selection and layout, sensor technical parameters, and data collection, transmission, storage and security management.

The release and implementation of the two standards fill the gaps in quantitative monitoring of cotton plant architecture and maturity and in IoT-based cotton field monitoring, providing systematic, standardized and quantitative technical bases for the digital monitoring of cotton production, and are of great significance for the digital transformation of cotton production, the application of smart agriculture technologies, the integration of agricultural machinery and agronomy, and precision water and fertilizer management.