Cotton leaf curl virus is likely to play havoc with the crop as it has damaged cotton worth USD 5 billion from 1992 to 1997, said American scientist, Prof Dr Rob W Briddon, addressing an international conference at University of Agriculture Faisalabad. The session was presided over by UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan while Director General, Ayub Agriculture Research Institute, Dr Noor-ul-Islam was the chief guest on the occasion.
The virus, popularly known as Patta Marorr virus among the local farmers, has caused an irreparable damage to the cotton crop in Pakistan over the past years and the agriculture scientists are unable to stop the damage as all conventional means of treatment have proven ineffective. Leaves of infected cotton curl upward along with vein thickening. The plants infected early in the season are stunted and the yield decreases drastically. This virus devastated the Pakistan cotton industry in the early 1990s, reducing the yield up to 30-35 per cent.
Briddon who is also a member of HEC Foreign Faculty and working with NIBGE, took an insight into the history of the virus. He said the virus broke out in 1967 and entered first time in Pakistan in 1988 in Multan due to import of American cotton variety named S12.
Talking about the origin of the virus, he told the audience that the virus enters any country through transportation. He explained that if a person travels from one country to another, the virus also travels through his luggage like a laptop, adopters etc.
He said the various viruses that had caused a loss to cotton and tomatoes crops in Multan, Indian cities, Karnatak, Allahabad, Rajasthan and Bangalore, had transformed into a new virus that might cause a low yield. He said another virus, Guzeria which originated from North Africa, had arrived in Pakistan. Vice Chancellor Dr Iqrar stressed the need to introduce new techniques and technologies and inform of them to the farmers and civil society to increase the per capita production of the country. He said the university was in the process of revisiting its past 50 years’ glory.
“We have chalked out a progressive agenda through holding a series of national and international events,” he said and announced the conference was also a part of UAF’s golden jubilee celebrations. He said: “We have a good reason to showcase our strength by celebrating the golden jubilee as whatever we produced in the last fifty years, has enabled us to undertake this much work in only one decade. To meet the challenges of agriculture, we have to go a long way. Keeping in view the challenges, the university has expedited its efforts in the field of research and education.”
Dr Noor-ul-Islam said the country had made tremendous development in the field of agriculture. Giving details, he said that at the time of the partition, the country had only nine flour mills, two sugar mills, 14 ginning mills, two textile mills and three oil mills while it had no rice mill. But now the country had 915 flour mills, 82 sugar mills, 2,000 ginning mills, 521 textile mills, 88 oil mills and 494 rice mills. He said in 1947, the cropped area was 11.61 million hectares which had now doubled.
He said the institute had introduced 398 varieties of the crops since its establishment. He added that the institute had invented 72 varieties of crops, 46 of cotton, 20 varieties of rice, 27 of pulse and 20 varieties of maize. Meanwhile, at another gathering of FSc Pre-Agriculture students, VC Dr Iqrar said Pakistan had been blessed with 80 million hectares of land resources of which only 22 million hectares was under cultivation.
“However, Pakistan can utilise 22 million more land resources by using water efficiency and storage mechanism to obtain self-sufficiency and food security in the country,” he said. Dr Iqrar lamented Pakistan could not build more water reservoirs to increase its current capacity of 13 per cent water storage as a result of which 87 per cent water was being wasted carelessly. The country has the same capacity of agricultural markets as were available in 1947 though agricultural productivity of all major crops had increased more than five times,” he said and stressed the need for more agricultural markets keeping in view the productivity volume.
