Better Cotton Initiatives

The resource constraints along with socioeconomic attributes and capabilities of farmers cause variations in the adoption of agricultural technologies. These variations represent an inefficiency source in complete utilization of management practices and epitomize a lack of achieving full potential offered by " better cotton " e an innovative cleaner production alternative. Therefore, this research focused on identifying the potential areas of improvement in " better cotton " farmers' input use by investigating the technical and economic efficiencies as well as the factors determining the resource use efficiency. Technical, allocative, and economic efficiencies of " better cotton " were analyzed using input-oriented data envelopment analysis. Factors affecting technical and economic efficiencies were identified using bootstrapped truncated regression. There was variation in technical efficiency and it was positively influenced by farmers' education, farming experience, and drainage status, whereas it was negatively influenced by the number of household members involved in farming and the area under cotton. The mean economic efficiency of 56% indicated that at the current productivity level inefficient farmers can reduce their costs by 44%. The economic efficiency was negatively affected by the number of household members involved in farming and the intensity of using crop management practices. Thus, efforts should be made to improve input use efficiency of particularly those " better cotton " farmers who are currently operating inefficiently. This efficiency analysis aims to provide recommendations to policy makers and promoters of " better cotton " as to which practices and inputs should be focused while implementing " better cotton " as a cleaner alternative to conventional cotton.

Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.), being a cash and fiber crop is of high significance in Paki-stan. Numerous insect pests and viral diseases in Pakistan and around the world attack cotton crop. Genetically modified cotton (transgenic, resistant to lepidopteran insects), hereafter written as 'Bt-cotton' has been introduced in many regions of the world to combat bollworms. However, cultivars differ in their pest susceptibility, yield response and fiber quality traits. Nonetheless, recent studies have indicated that lepidopteran pests are evolving resistance against 'Bt-cotton'. Several 'Bt-cotton' cultivars have been developed in Pakistan in the past decade; however, limited is known about their pest susceptibility, seed-cotton yield and fiber quality traits. This two-year field study evaluated pest susceptibility, yield and fiber quality traits of thirteen newly developed 'Bt-cotton' cultivars in Pakistan. The cultivars differed in their susceptibility to sucking insects during both years of study.

Based on mainly primary data collected from 302 farmers in Punjab province of Pakistan, this study analyzed inputs use efficiency of and financial return from “better cotton” and conventional cotton. It also sought reasons for cultivation and non-cultivation of “better cotton” based on farmers’ socioeconomic characteristics and their direct responses to related questions. The findings of analyses revealed “better cotton” better than conventional cotton in terms of both inputs use efficiency and financial return.Despite being less efficient in terms of inputs use efficiency and financial return, farmers were growing conventional cotton primarily because the government agency responsible for agricultural extension had not paid attention to promotion of “better cotton” as in the BCI project area. Important policy conclusions are drawn and broad recommendations are made for the promotion of “better cotton” in Punjab and elsewhere.

The experiment was laid to analyze genetic features, genotypic and phenotypic correlation coefficients, path analysis with regression analysis among yield contributing traits in a selected F3 populations of upland cotton including parents. In this research experiment ANOVA showed significant difference among all individual plants in F3 populations. Monopodia per plant and bolls per plant possessed maximum value of PCV% and GCV%. Maximum broad sense heritability (≥ 90) was found in all recorded traits except seeds per boll, fiber length and lint percentage. Correlation studies revealed that Seed cotton yield positively correlated with all yield contributing traits i.e. plant height, monopodial branches per plant, Number of bolls per plant, boll weight, lint weight, seed index, lint index, seeds per boll, fiber fineness, fiber strength and fiber uniformity at both genotypic and phenotypic level whereas it depicted negative relationship with staple length. Path coefficient analysis showed that maximum direct positive effect was found of lint weight (2.6005) on seed cotton yield followed fiber fineness (1.2628), seed index (1.1449) and bolls per plant (1.0027). Regression study exhibited that maximum value of R2 for lint weight (0.9509) and boll weight (0.3735) depicted that 95.09% and 37.35% variation in the seed cotton yield, due to its relationship with lint weight and boll weight. It is concluded that there is a great genetic potential in F3 populations for mostly yield contributing traits for further enhancing yield. So those traits should be used as selection criteria during breeding for yield

The present experiment was carried out in insectary farm, Section of Entomology, College of Agriculture, Nagpur during 2016-2017 to evaluate the efficacy of different treatments (chemicals, botanicals and microbials viz. Imidacloprid 17.8 SL, Spiromesifen 22.9 SC, Neem oil 2%, Neem seed extract 5%, Tobacco leaf extract 10%, Metarhizium anisoplie 1x10 8 CFU/ml, Verticillium lecanii 1x10 8 CFU/ml and Beauveria bassiana 1x10 8 CFU/ml) against sucking pest complex of cotton. Highest reduction in mean nymph population of sucking pests (except whitefly) was recorded with Imidacloprid 17.8 SL (aphids-79.55%, 78.28%; jassids-77.32%, 75.50%; thrips-78.94%, 77.88%) followed by Spiromesifen 22.9 SC (aphids-73.18,70.90; jassids-73.05, 71.82; thrips-76.30,74.20) after 5 and 10 days of all three sprayings respectively. Whereas, highest reduction in the population of whitefly was observed in Spiromesifen 22.9 SC (82.27%, 80.57%) followed by Imidacloprid 17.8 SL (78.32%, 77.90%). Among botanicals, Neem oil 2 per cent, Neem seed extract 5 per cent and Tobacco leaf extract 10 per cent were found effective towards reduction of sucking pests. Whereas, amongst the microbials Metarhizium anisoplie 1x10 8 CFU/ml was found promising for controlling jassids and Verticillium lecanii 1x10 8 CFU/ml against aphids, whitefly and thrips.