Use of modern tech to improve cotton crop

LAHORE:Punjab Minister for Agriculture Syed Husnain Jahania Gardezi has emphasised the use of modern technology and Integrated Pest Management for improving cotton crop management and field results.

Addressing a seminar organised by the Punjab University Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology (CEMB), he further said that agriculture was the backbone of our country and nearly 60% of country’s export was based on cotton and cotton-related products.

Agricultural Secretary Punjab Asad Rahman Gilani, Dean Life Sciences Punjab University Dr Javed Iqbal Qazi, Dean Institute of Agricultural Sciences Dr Saleem Haider, Sindh Seed Council member Nadeem Shah, representatives of more than nine seed companies, growers and farmers from across Pakistan, senior professors from educational and research institutes, faculty members and researchers were present on this occasion.

Gardezi further said that seed traceability by fingerprinting was the key to control the quality of seed. He assured full support of the government for the distribution of CEMB cotton varieties to the farmers across Pakistan. CEMB Director Prof Dr Ahmad Ali Shahid briefed the audience about CEMB’s struggle for developing and commercialising cotton varieties CKC1, two, and three. He paid his gratitude to all the funding agencies and hundreds of researchers who have been working on cotton variety development at CEMB since the ’90s.

Later, Prof Dr Abdul Qayyum Rao, Prof Dr Bushra Rashid, Dr Allah Bakhsh, Prof Dr Tayyab Husnain, Prof Dr Idrees Ahmed Nasir and others shared the CEMB cotton varieties’ success story with the audience and briefed them about constraints in cotton development and the NBC guidelines that should be followed for cultivation of transgenic varieties. Nadeem Shah suggested that experienced researchers and breeders should be included in think tank for policy-making.