Published on Sat, Jun 06, 2009 at 08:37 | Source : Business Line
Updated at Sat, Jun 06, 2009 at 09:19
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Desi Bt cotton set to blossom in farms this year
Seven years after the commercial launch of Monsanto’s Bt cotton, Indian farmers are about to plant the first publicly bred genetically modified (GM) seeds of the crop.
"Our variety is also more effective against pink and spotted bollworms than the Bt hybrids. This is because in the case of hybrids, a quarter of the developing seeds in the green bolls do not express the Bt toxin. The segregation of the toxin gene does not happen in varieties," he claimed.
Even with regard to the NHH 44-Bt, Dr Kranthi said farmers had to hardly spray once for controlling sucking pests such as aphids, jassids and thrips, whereas in the other hybrids, "you have to spray 3-4 rounds of pesticides".
Limitations
The CICR Director, however, admitted that competing with the private sector would not be easy, given the government agencies' limited seed multiplication and marketing network.
Last year, Bt cotton accounted for around 19 million acres or 80 per cent of the country's total area under the crop. Of this, 12.7 million acres were covered under Bollgard-I hybrids (based on Monsanto's proprietary cry1Ac Bt gene technology) and 4.5 million acres under Bollgard-II seeds (containing a stacked combination of cry1Ac and cry2Ab genes).
In addition, hybrids based on JK Agri Genetic Ltd's alternate cry1Ac and Nath Biogene's 'cry1Ab-cry1Ac fusion gene' technologies covered an estimated 0.3 million and 0.25 million acres, respectively. The remaining area was mainly under various illegal Bt hybrid seeds.
