Cotton Farming

  Cotton Farming              

 In India cotton is harvested in many states. now a days mostly used variety in cotton seed is B.TWhich is giving very good result instead of Nanded variety. B.T. variety is giving from 10 quintel per acre to 25 quintel with irrigation but with that its have some disadvantages. this variety have less resistance power so, it require more care upto complete harvesting. and  every year lot many sub varieties are coming in market. basically this variety is in irrigation so it give average in irrigation only 

          
  B.T. Cotton

         In recent days BT cotton has hot topic for all agriculture camminities and also amang policy makers,social activities. BT cotton is generally engineered by natural cotton.The main advantage of utilizing biotechnology in agriculture are the possibilities of increase in productivity through the use of newer veriety that passes properties such that resistance to pest,dieseses, and other stressfull condition like salinity or water logging. 

              B.T. cotton is produce by inserting a synthetic version of gene from the natural occurring soil bacterium bacillus thuringiensis, into cotton.The primary reason this is done is to induce the plant to produce its own Bt toxin to destroy the bollworm, a major cotton pest. The gene causes the production of Bt toxin in all parts of the cotton plant throughout its entire life span. When the bollworm ingests any part of the plant, the Bt cotton toxin pierces its small intestine and kills the insect.

Why it comes in India

              Although India has the world’s largest acreage of 8.9 million hectares representing about one quarter of the global area (35 million ha) under cotton cultivation, the average yield of cotton is 440Kg/ha, which is far below the world average of 677 Kg/ha. The production is also only 16% (4.13 million tonnes) of the world production of 26.19 million tonnes. Main cause for this reduced production is the 162 species of insects, which are known to devour cotton at various stages of growth, of which 15 are considered to be key pests.

             Among the insects, cotton bollworms are the most serious pests in India causing an annual loss of at least US$300 million. Together these pests and diseases result in an estimated loss of 50% to 60%of potential yield. Farmers therefore use a cocktail of expensive chemical pesticides to control pest infestation. Currently pesticides account for one-third of total cultivation costs. In India, an estimated US$ 660 million (Rs 29 billion) worth of pesticides is used in agriculture, of which US$ 344 million (Rs 16 billion) is used on cotton.

               Bollworm alone takes a heavy toll, costing the farmers an annual US$ 235 million (Rs 11 billion). This accounts for more than a third of current pesticides sales in India. So to mitigate this yield loss incorporating insect resistance has become the prime objective of cotton improvement efforts in India. But painfully no bollworm resistance is available in the germplasm. Thus the efforts got diverted to harness genetic engineering technology for bollworm resistance in India in 1990s with the import of genetically modified (GM) cotton and initiation of research programmes in national laboratories.