Muktsar: To reduce the cost of picking cotton and make growing the crop more profitable for the farmers, the Punjab government has initiated a pilot project in Muktsar district. The project is also aimed at promoting mechanized cotton cultivation. The first picking trial was conducted at Bham village in the district on Wednesday.
Farm experts claimed that new technology would increase crop yield and decrease the cultivation cost of cotton. The state government has imported three automatic machines to provide demonstration in the fields at the exhibition plants.
Under manual picking, the average cost per acre turns out to be more than Rs 5,000 whereas with mechanized picking, its cost would work out at nearly Rs 4,000 per acre, including the re-cleaning charges of Rs 1,500 per acre for the crop.
The mechanized sowing uses more seeds per acre than manual sowing so the state government has decided to subsidize the extra seed required for the process, said the agriculture department officials.
Muktsar chief agriculture officer (CAO) Baljinder Singh Brar said, "Dense sowing of crop is done with extra seed as with this technology 28,000-32,000 plants are grown in an acre with a pneumatic planter. In manual sowing, only 5,000 cotton plants are grown per acre. Due to high density of plants, there is less weed growth in the crop hence it decreases the cost of weed control exercise."
He said later, during the vegetative growth stage, the plant growth regulator would be sprayed to control the height of plant to be kept up to 3.5 feet. "Due to lesser height, foliar spray of insecticide proves effective and it further helps in pest control with minimum use of insecticide," Brar said.