High-yielding cotton variety fails to fare well in state

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 2

For years, sugarcane growers in Punjab cultivated the high-yielding CO-238, but after every harvest, they compared the yield and the sugar recovery to the one obtained by farmers cultivating the same variety in neighbouring Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The yield of cane grown here remained 40 quintals per acre less than the yield in other states and the recovery was also substantially less.

The cultivation of CO-238 continued, with everyone in the government, sugar mills and farmers resigning to the situation. It was only after Cooperation Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, perturbed at the low-yield of the variety here vis-a-vis in other states, started examining the variety that the truth emerged — the variety grown in Punjab is not the pure CO-238, but the seed has a parentage of other multiple varieties.

“I was shocked when the DNA result of the seed came out, the test for which was done at Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore. The samples of the seed were sent from Gurdaspur and Ajnala. The major reason for the non-performance of this otherwise high-yielding variety was that the seed used in the state was not pure,” Randhawa told The Tribune. This variety is grown on almost 50 per cent of the area under cane cultivation in Punjab.

He said the same variety, when grown in the areas of western Uttar Pradesh and Haryana – having soil and climatic conditions similar to Punjab — was giving an average yield of 356-370 quintal per acre. “In Uttar Pradesh’s Shamli, CO-238 is giving a yield of 385 quintal per acre, whereas in Punjab, it was just 325-330 quintal per acre. I met experts in Sugarfed, Punjab Agricultural University, Sugarcane Breeding Institute and other sugarcane research institutes and ordered the DNA test of the CO-238 variety,” said the minister.

Sugarfed officials said the reason for the impure variety in Punjab was its late recommendation for use. “PAU recommended cultivation of seed of this variety in 2014-15 even though it was cleared for cultivation in other states in 2009. Since the yield was higher in these states, farmers, on their own, started procuring seeds for cultivation. In all likelihood, the source of seeds was not authentic or recognised, leading to the mixed variety of seeds reaching and being cultivated in Punjab,” said Shivrajpal Singh Dhaliwal, sugarcane in charge, Sugarfed.

Now with the problem having been identified, a massive seed development programme has been prepared by Sugarfed in coordination with PAU, Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Karnal regional centre and the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories. “For this season, around 20 lakh seed samplings of pure varieties have been distributed to farmers. We will also introduce single-bud technique cultivation this year and within the next two-three years, our yield will be much higher. The sugar recovery could go up from present 9.5 per cent to over 10.5 per cent,” said Randhawa.