Cotton growers advised to adopt Brazilian pattern

Pakistan's farmers can learn a lot from their Brazilian counterparts to increase their per acre yield of cotton, said the Director, Central Cotton Research Institute (CCRI) Muhammad Arshad here on Wednesday.
The CCRI Director, who returned from a study tour of Brazil recently, told APP that Brazilian growers are harvesting up to 40 maunds per acre of the silver fibre.
He said that the industrious Brazilian farmers are following scientific methods of husbandry, while weather conditions there are also favourable to the cotton plant. Their sowing and picking seasons are opposite to Pakistan's, as they cultivate it in November and pick in June, he added.
He said that due to cotton-friendly weather the boll size of cotton there is larger than here, which also contributes to the larger per acre yield. "There is no canal irrigation system in Brazil, nor do they have tube-wells. The entire country is an arid zone, and farmers fill ponds in rainy season and utilise these reservoirs for their crop during the dry spell," he said.
"What we can emulate from them is the fact that most of their farming is mechanised, and they do not have manual cotton picking like ours," he observed, adding that the farmers there are mostly supplied certified quality seeds from US companies.
He said that they have computerised their soil fertilising needs, which is why they use only those fertilisers which are required by their land. About application of pesticides, he said that Brazilian farmers apply 15 to 16 sprays of high quality agri medicines, which further ensure higher production.
He said that many of the growers have their own ginneries, while those who do not own one get their cotton ginned from the factories but market their produce themselves.
He counselled Pakistan farmers to emulate the Brazilians in the use of quality seeds and agri inputs, and apply only the requisite fertilisers. About cultivation of Bt cotton, he said that the government of Brazil has recently signed an agreement with a US firm to import Bt cotton seed, which requires less pesticides and has more yield potential.