Looking for high yielding BT cotton hybrid for rainfed black cotton soil in Yavatmal, Maharashtra. Want pink bollworm tolerance and good staple.
2 Answers
For Yavatmal rainfed conditions, choose a medium duration BG II hybrid suited to your soil rather than chasing one brand name, since performance shifts year to year. Pick a 150 to 160 day hybrid for medium black soils and a slightly earlier one for shallow soils that dry early. Sow at 90x60 cm or 90x45 cm under rainfed conditions to keep plant population around 18,000 to 22,000 per acre. No BT hybrid is immune to pink bollworm, so combine it with pheromone traps at 8 to 10 per acre, timely picking, and crop ending by January. Buy only state recommended, fresh dated seed from a licensed dealer with a pucca bill. Confirm the current recommended hybrid list with your KVK or Dr PDKV Akola for this season.
I farm near Ner in Yavatmal. I stopped trusting any single hybrid after bollworm losses. Now I plant two different hybrids in the same field, keep refuge non BT seed as in the packet, and do first picking on time. My yield is steadier this way.