Desi Bt cotton set to blossom in farms this year

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New Delhi, June 5:

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.

The current kharif season will see around 10,000 acres being sown under Bikaneri Nerma-Bt, an in-bred variety, and 2,000 acres under a hybrid, NHH 44-Bt - both developed by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research's Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR).

Foreign genes

Bt/GM cotton basically contains foreign genes isolated from a soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that produce proteins toxic against various bollworm insect pests.

"We are making available 13,000 packets of the Bikaneri Nerma-Bt and 2,000 packets of NHH 44-Bt this year, which we plan to raise to three lakh packets and one lakh packets respectively in kharif 2010," Dr K.R. Kranthi, Director of the Nagpur-based institute told Business Line here on Friday.

Each packet of Bikaneri Nerma, containing 2 kg of the Bt seeds, is being priced at Rs 200. The maximum retail price of the NHH 44 hybrids, having 750 grams of Bt seeds, has been set at Rs 400 a packet. In both cases, along with the Bt seeds, 200 grams of pigeon-pea (arhar) seeds are being supplied free.

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"The arhar seeds are being given to farmers to grow as refuge around the Bt cotton. These will divert the bollworm activity and minimise the potential for development of Bt-resistant pest races in the long run," Dr Kranthi explained.

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