ARS, Tornala organised a Training programme cum Method demonstration on “High Density Planting System (HDPS) in Cotton” on 25-06-2024

A training programme cum method demonstration on “High Density Planting System (HDPS) in Cotton” was organized by ARS, Tornala on 25-06-2024 to field officers of Deshpande Foundation, a non-governmental organization, working in the areas of agriculture. Dr. S. Sridevi, Principal Scientist and Head, ARS, Tornala explained about the techniques to be followed in high density cotton cultivation such as sowing with 90×15 cm or 80 × 20 cm spacing between the rows and plants respectively (29,630 or 25000 seedlings per acre) for higher yields under rainfed light soil conditions. She also informed that, spraying of Mepiquat Chloride @1.0 ml per liter of water once in 50 and 75 days after sowing helps in restricting the vegetative growth of the plant and improves weight of the bolls and expecting about 10q of yields under rainfed light soil conditions. Further, she briefed that the traditional cotton cultivation requires 3-4 pickings with more labour but in HDPS cotton cultivation requires one or two times of cotton picking with less labour resulting in reduction in cost of cultivation and the crop will be harvested by the end of November or first fortnight of December which helps to reduce the Pink Boll Worm incidence and facilitates a sequence crop. Sri J. Vijay, Coordinator, DAATTC, Tornala explained about difference between normal cotton and HDPS cotton economically and said that for usage of pneumatic planter, 55 HP tractor should be needed. Later, demonstration on sowing of HDPS cotton with cotton hybrid NCS-7788 (90 cm x 20 cm) with pneumatic planter at ARS, Tornala was taken up. In this programme, all the scientists of ARS and DAATTC, Tornala participated and cleared various doubts queried by the field officers during field visit.