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Garma
Garam More
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Agriculture |
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'Bt Cotton Trials Encouraging' From the experiments carried out in India so far and from the published information available from elsewhere it has been found that Bt-cotton plant is nearly equivalent to non-Bt cotton plant in every respect, except that Bt-cotton plant has an additional property of producing its own biopesticide to protect itself from its main target insect pests, Dr. P.K. Ghosh, Advisor to the Department of Biotechnology, under the Ministry of Science and Technology, has said. Delivering a lecture on the 'Status of research on genetically modified crops in India with special reference to cotton' here on June 23, Dr. Ghosh told the members of Indian Society for Cotton Improvement that the greatest challenge to the acceptance of Bt-cotton by the farmers and the society would be from the high expectations of the farmers. Cautioning against the over-promotion of the new product, the scientist said it would be rather important to educate farmers and dealers in the right way so that they could be realistic in their expectations from Bt-cotton. ``Farmers must be told that Bt-cotton does not control all pests. It reduces the target pests substantially, but does not eliminate and eradicate all the pests. Consequently, there may be need for application of insecticides'', Dr. Ghosh emphasised. To obtain the most effective control of pests while planting Bt-cotton, farmers must undertake extensive scouting of the field to decide and understand when supplemental sprays of chemical insecticides for the control of cotton pests were necessary, he added. Field experiments conducted in India showed an increase in productivity ranging from 23 to 60 per cent during 1998 and 29 to 88 per cent in 1999. The controls were the farmers' practices. The initial results were thus encouraging, Dr. Ghosh asserted. Food safety evaluation of seeds, oil and cake of Bt-cotton done simultaneously to establish their safety to humans and animals was positive. Studies had shown that Bt-cotton was safe to ruminants. It was in use in the manufacture of fabrics for humans for the last four to five years in several countries. There had not been any reported allergenicity from the use of such clothes from anywhere in the world, it was pointed out. Bt-cotton (containing a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis) is said to be effective against Lepidoptera, commonly known as caterpillars. Key caterpillar pests found in Indian cotton fields are American Bollworm, Spotted Bollworm, Spiny Bollworm and Pink Bollworm. Dated : 27 June 2000
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