Punjab’s average cotton productivity almost 45% less than last year

According to the details procured from the Punjab Agriculture Department, this year the state’s average productivity is recorded at 363 kg lint per hectare (147 kg lint per acre), while the raw cotton productivity is 1,089 kg per hectare (441 kg per acre).

Lint is a white fibre which is recovered from ginned raw cotton. In the ginning process, for every quintal (100 kg) of ‘kapas’ (unginned cotton or raw cotton), the recovery of lint is 33-36 kg and of seed is 63-66 kg.

According to the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, Punjab has recorded 651 kg lint (1,953 kg raw cotton per hectare), 690 kg lint (2,070 kg raw cotton) and 652 kg lint (1,956 kg raw cotton) per hectare in 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22, respectively.

As per the records, Punjab’s cotton productivity this year is almost 45% less than the last year.

Experts said that cotton crop is being attacked by plant pests like pink bollworm and white fly, and even stunted growth of plants was observed in several fields. Scientists must focus on managing these issues and making farmers aware of them, prevention methods and other cotton crop-related techniques, the experts added.

Meanwhile, PAU’s Regional Research Centre (RRC), Bathinda, has already developed 57 cotton crop varieties to date.

The experts realised the need for massive attention towards this crop due to attacks of various pests, and in this regard an “Inter-State Consultative and Monitoring Committee” meeting was held on December 22 in Bathinda under the chairmanship of Dr Gurwinder Singh, Director of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Punjab, to take stock of the pink bollworm attack on cotton last year and to review the action plan for its management during Kharif 2023-24.

Dr S S Gosal, vice-chancellor of PAU Ludhiana, also participated in this meeting along with the chief agricultural officers from various cotton-growing districts of the state and scientists from PAU, HAU Hisar and ICAR-CICR Sirsa.

For the uninitiated, ICAR stands for Indian Council of Agricultural Research, while CICR stands for Central Institute for Cotton Research. HAU is Haryana Agricultural University.

In the meeting, Dr Gurwinder Singh had laid stress on earmarking a crucial time to create awareness among the cotton growers for off-season management of pink bollworms and other insects attacking the cotton crops. He said that the state department of agriculture and PAU need to be more vigilant in the pink bollworm-infested areas of Bathinda, Mansa, Muktsar and Fazilka districts of Punjab during the off-season.

He emphasised regular surveillance of pink bollworms and training camps for their management. He said strategies must be chalked out to keep pink bollworms from attacking the crops during both off-season and in-season.

He said that sticks should be stacked vertically away from the field area where maximum penetration of sunlight in the sticks is there. These sticks should be used for fuel purposes by the end of February. Also, before stacking, the sticks should be beaten on the ground to dislodge the unopened cotton bolls that may be harbouring the larvae of pink ballworm. These unopened bolls should be destroyed, he added.

Dr Gurwinder Singh said that they are planning to make farmers aware about these through various camps in January and February – before the beginning of cotton sowing in April.

This year there was around 2.48 lakh hectares under cotton crop in the state against 2.52 lakh hectares last year, which is a fall of around 1.6% area under cotton, but a huge fall is being seen in productivity which is around 45%.

Meanwhile, the rate of cotton is quite high than the minimum support price (MSP) but still farmers are holding back the harvested cotton crop (in November) as they are expecting a hike in the prices after the Lohri festival (January 14).

Currently, the rate of raw cotton is Rs 8,500 to Rs 9,600 per quintal, which is much higher than the MSP. The farmers expect the price to rise above Rs 10,000 per quintal by January-February 2023. Last year when farmers sold their crops in January and February, they fetched Rs 13,000 to Rs 14,000 per quintal, which was an all-time high rate for raw cotton in the state.