Need to produce compact cotton varieties stressed

Farmers should produce compact cotton varieties suitable for mechanised harvesting, a senior official of Indian Council of Agricultural Research said today.
Inaugurating a three-day annual group meeting of All India Co-ordinated Research Project on Cotton here, ICAR Assistant Director General (Commercial Crops) Dr N Gopalakrishnan also wanted development of multiple stress resistance cotton varieties for different zones.
He complemented the cotton scientists for assisting in surpassing China in cotton productivity, by achieving a production of 400 lakh bales, a release from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), where the meeting is being held, said.
TNAU Vice-Channcellor K. Ramasamy sensitized the scientific fraternity about the enormous biomass potential of cotton for producing crystalline cellulose for large scale industrial uses.

Cotton and sugarcane were the two most important commercial crops which have higher industrial usage and their productivity have to be increased many fold for higher profitability, he said.