Agri News : New Cotton variety to resist Whitefly attack

The whitefly resistant cotton variety was first introduced to the scientific community in 2013. Yet it remained confined to the National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI) poly house even as the whitefly struck unsuspecting farmers in 2015.

The total cotton acreage in India is estimated at 40 million acres in nine states, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.

Whitefly has been damaging different crops in several countries at different time spans. "This is the first instance when whitefly caused such extensive damage to any crop in India.

The NBRI has been working on cotton since 1994 and this is the reason the cotton plant was selected for developing the whitefly resistant variety. The cotton variety was first injected with a protein derived from a medicinal plant. This protein possessed anti-insect properties. This hybrid cotton variety was found whitefly resistant in glasshouse and poly house experiments.

"We have written to the Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, about the whitefly resistant cotton and they have shown interest," Singh says. The NBRI is also in talks with the Central Institute for Cotton Research, Nagpur, which is an Indian Council of Agricultural Research laboratory, but nothing concrete has emerged.

Before this cotton variety can be made commercially available, it will need field trials after approval by the GM Board and other regulatory bodies.

Source:http://www.business-standard.com/