MULTAN:Secretary of agriculture South Punjab Saqib Ali Ateel on Friday identified climate change, viruses, white flies and pink bollworm as the major threats to national cotton production and urged agriculture scientists to develop climate-smart cotton varieties to overcome these challenges.
In a statement issued here, Saqib asked the scientists to put their all energies into research on modern cotton varieties so that these could be given to farmers after proper approval to increase national cotton production.
He said, he visited Cotton Research Station (CRS) Multan Thursday last and was happy to note 66 trials of many cotton varieties undergoing experimental production phases including a triple gene cotton variety Okra that was shifted to the experimental field in the first week of March.
The height of its plant was measured at 66.2cm, nodes 26.4, per plant square 22.2, flower 1.8, bolls 4.8cm, and the weight of each boll was 4.5 grams. He said that fibre characteristics of the variety were also better including GOT 40 per cent, staple length 29.5mm and micron 2.4 inch.
Saqib hoped the experiment, if successful, would yield many benefits including saving time, achieving the required plant population etc.
Principal scientist Dr Saeed Ahmad gave a detailed briefing to the secretary saying the varieties in the pipeline were high yielding, heat tolerant, resistant against viruses, need shorter duration for ripening and had good boll weight.