No other variety developed by any other public sector institute has been identified for North Zone in this meeting. (Representational Image)
Two Bt cotton varieties – PAU Bt 2 and PAU Bt 3 – developed by Punjab Agricultural University, have been identified for North Zone comprising Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan in the Variety Identification Committee meeting, held under the chairmanship of Dr AK Singh, Deputy Director General (Horticulture and Crop Science), ICAR, in December 2019, the university said in a statement Friday.
No other variety developed by any other public sector institute has been identified for North Zone in this meeting. These varieties were evaluated for two years at five locations of North Zone under All India Coordinated Research Project on Cotton. On the basis of two year data, PAU Bt 2 and PAU Bt 3 recorded an average seed cotton yield of 2,905 kg/ha and 2,840 kg/ha, respectively against 2,409 kg/ha of non-Bt zonal check variety F 2228.
PAU Bt 2 and Bt 3 recorded the percentage seed cotton yield superiority of 20.6 per cent and 17.9 per cent, respectively against check F 2228. Both new varieties have good ginning out turn and exhibited superior fibre properties than other compared checks. PAU Bt 2 and PAU Bt 3 have inbuilt resistance against bollworms, and are moderately resistant to cotton leaf curl disease, fungal foliar diseases and resistant to bacterial leaf blight. The major attraction of the development of Bt varieties is that farmers can produce the seed for next year on their own and will get rid of purchase of costly hybrid seed every year.