URUMQI -- Chinese scientists have set a world record by harvesting 12,575 kg of seed cotton on a single hectare of land in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, data released Sunday showed.

The output, 838.31 kg per mu (0.067 hectares), has surpassed the former world record by over 100 kg per mu, said Li Xueyuan, deputy director of the Cash Crop Research Institute under the Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

The record was achieved on an experimental field in the Tarim Basin in southern Xinjiang through the use of new varieties of cotton and quantitative management methods, Li said.

Xinjiang, the largest cotton producer in China, is expected to reach 3.2 million metric tons in cotton output for 2012 on an area of 24.7 million mu, accounting for half of the national yield.