Impact of whitefly, leaf curl on cotton by Scientists studyHome

The Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) has set up five trial locations for “Bt Cotton Monitoring against CLCuV and Whiteflies” in five cotton rich districts of the North.

A team of experts led by Dr KR Kranthi, Director, Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR) completed its two-day monitoring visit at Sirsa and Hisar in Haryana, Sriganganagar in Rajasthan and Faridkot and Bathinda in Punjab on Thursday.

“We are studying the impact of CLCuV and whiteflies on as many as 130 hybrids of Bt cotton. Of these, 96 are already in the market while 34 are still to be released,” said Dr Dilip Monga, Head of the northern regional station of CICR at Sirsa, who is a team member.

Studies during the past four years have revealed that CLCuV has been causing 5 to 35 per cent damage to cotton yield while whiteflies too have been causing potential damage by sucking sap from the leaves of cotton.

Dr Monga said trial locations on one- and- a- half acre each have been set up at the five locations.

Two rows each of the seeds of 130-odd Bt hybrids provided by the manufacturers were sown in replicated experiments on all the five locations.

“Monitoring for the impact of CLCuV and whiteflies is done by scientists through susceptible checks and comparative evaluation of different hybrids,” he said. He said that the results will be available after decoding by the end of the season and shall go a long way in recommending Bt cotton hybrids tolerant to CDCuD and whiteflies.

This will help farmers improve their productivity and income, Dr Monga said.

Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com/