Pakistani cotton under viral and pest threats

A new Post "Pakistani cotton under viral and pest threats" was written on the January 21, 2012 at 1:11 am on "Textile Global - Textile and Fashion News".

Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCV), along with other sucking pests such as
mealybug, jassid and whitefly, is still posing a major threat to
Pakistan's cotton crop, despite the introduction of Bacillus
Thuringiensis (BT) cotton. "Studies on Bacillus Thuringiensis (BT)
cotton have acknowledged that Pakistani farmers are not making the
most of BT cotton, because the BT varieties were developed by various
private sector plant breeders by transferring BT trait to locally
developed cotton varieties, and these varieties are distributed
without a formal regulatory framework which raises several concerns
about seed quality," said the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in its
recent report.

According to the report, there is also no resistance management plan
and farmers are encouraged to maintain a refuge area with conventional
cotton varieties alongside BT cotton crop so that resistance in pests
may not rekindle over a period of time.

SBP said that controlling these pests is important because cotton
yields in Pakistan are very low compared with other countries like
China, Brazil and Turkey, despite that Pakistan is the world's fourth
largest cotton producer.

Although higher intensity of insect and pest attacks and poor quality
of seeds are the key reasons for low cotton yields in Pakistan, it can
be improved with the introduction of pest-resistant seeds, which is
likely to have substantial impact on cotton production.

The use of BT cotton has an immediate bearing on farmers as it reduces
expense on pesticides and crops gain resistance against the incidence
of bollworm, but seeds are costlier and require more water and urea.

BT cotton has been developed through the transfer of a gene, Bacillus
Thuringiensis (BT), from a soil bacterium. This gene enhances crop
resistance against three bollworms: spotted, pink, and American
bollworm. The Pakistani government introduced genetically-modified
(GM) cotton seeds from 2010 kharif season (June to September).
Accordingly, certified seeds for 10 varieties of BT cotton and one
hybrid variety were released.

Although the work on developing GM seeds started in 1997, delays in
commercial use of certified GM seeds resulted in unregulated adoption
of different varieties of BT cotton as early as the year 2000, said
SBP.

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Pakistani cotton under viral and pest threats

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