Visit of Nodal officer for Special project on HDPS Cotton, Nagarkurnool & Team KVK, Palem to HDPS Cotton fields of Nagarkurnool Dist, Telangana on 20.09.2023

Nodal officer, Dr. M. Sabesh Senior Scientist, ICAR-CICR, Regional Station, Coimbatore for the Special project on HDPS Cotton, Nagarkurnool along with the Programme Coordinator and other staff, KVK, Palem visited the HDPS cotton fields at Nandi Vaddeman, Palem, Manthati, Yendabetla and Cherla Itikyala villages and interacted with the farmers. Further, visited KVK, Palem office and HDPS demo plot at instructional farm where 7 hybrids have been demonstrated. Some observations made during the visit: The crop is at Boll formation, boll bursting and first picking stages in various fields, sowings were taken up during the II FN of June with Armita, Winner and Siri. The farmers have followed 90x15 cm and 90x20 cm of spacing and taken up 1-2 sprayings with Mepiquat chloride @ 1 ml/ lit as plant growth regulator. The plant height is 100-110 cm and the length of the first five internodes have been restricted to less the 20 cm and observed 15-17 sympodial branches/plant and 12-14 bolls/plant with 5.5-6.0g/boll of boll weight in three different varietied of Nuzuveedu (Armitha, Siri & Winner). Currently, the crop is in good condition with optimum plant population. In this visit some Major Problems Diagnosed: Due to the dry spell conditions sucking pests complex (Thrips, leaf hoppers, aphids and mealy bugs above ETL) and TSV incidence is severe in the visited fields and recommended to spray Flonicamid or Thiamethoxam @ 0.4g/lit or Sulfaxaflor@150/acre and Azadiractin 1500 PPM @ 1 lit/acre, installation of Yellow and white sticky traps@ 10+10 per acre for thrips management. Dr. M. Sabesh, Senior Scientist, ICAR-CICR, Regional Station, Coimbatore emphasized on importance of the HDPS technology and best management practices for the better yields. Dr. T. Prabhakar Reddy, PC, KVK, Palem interacted with farmers and emphasized on the importance of canopy management, right use of fertilizers and current scenario of market intelligence. Sri. P. Narsimha Reddy, AGM, Nuzuveedu Pvt Ltd discussed about the varietal characters, area sown particulars of Nuziveedu variety. Dr. O. Shaila, SMS (PP) highlighted the IPDM practices in HDPS cotton. In this visit Nodal Officer Dr. M. Sabesh Senior Scientist, ICAR-CICR, Regional Station, Coimbattore, Dr. T. Prabhakar Reddy, PC, KVK, Palem, Sri. P. Narsimha Reddy, AGM, Nuzuveedu Pvt Ltd, Dr. O. Shaila, SMS (PP), Dr. B. Rajashekar, SMS(Extension), Mr. Raghuvaran Singh (YP II), Mr. Harish (YP I), Smt. Gowthami (YP I) & Smt. Pushpalatha (YP II), Sri. K. Bhaskar, Field Officer and farmers total 27 members were participated.