Export quality surgical cotton from NE India

1 Agronomy, Central Institute for Cotton Research, Nagpur (M.S.) India. 2 Farm Power and Machinery, Central Institute for Cotton Research, Nagpur, India. 3 Ex Research Associate, Central Institute for Cotton Research, Nagpur 73857 09325, India. 4 Plant Breeding, Maize Research Station, Angrau, Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh), India. 5 Plant Breeding) and Head, ARS, ANGRAU, Mudhol, Adilabad (Andhra Pradesh), India. 6 Agronomy RARS, Diphu (Assam Agriculture University), India.


INTRODUCTION
Increase in the corporate health care facilities internationally created high demand for pesticide residue free surgical cotton (MSME, 2010;Deshpande, 2011;Jayashree, 2013). Surgical cotton Indian export houses were continuously exporting to European union and China (Anon, 2008). However, they were recently facing shortage of raw materials (CCI, 2012). Bt hybrid cotton invasion was invisible on indigenous cottons in north eastern states and north coastal Andhra Pradesh.
Absence of minimum support prices (MSP)/Bt trait and higher ginning out turn in Gossypium arboreum cernum cottons grown without pesticides (Guillaume and Yan, 2012), which were in favour of entrepreneurs who want to export EU countries where GMOs are not desirable. Dewaxing and carboxilation are needed to get desirable absorbancy of 10 s absorbency and sinking time with water holding capacity > 23 g /g cotton (Mokate et al., 2011;MSME, 2010). ICAR-CIRCOT, Mumbai, India *Corresponding author. E-mail: bumaraju@gmail.com, Tel: 9975055630. Author(s) agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License developed a chemical free surgical cotton protocol (Gayal et al., 2012).
Assam Comilla (7-8 micronaire) / Bengal desi (6.8 to 7.2 micronaire) cottons are only exported by leading international brands however, uses high micronaire, very coarse for surgical cotton production due to very few neps formed during processing (Cotton Inc, 2012). Assam Comilla cotton is traded much below the Minimum support price mainly because of absence of procurement centres of cotton by Cotton Corporation of India in northeastern states (CCI, 2015). Bengal desi (G. arboreum cernum) cotton having big bolls produced in mixed cropping situations under pesticide free environment in north east dominating with Meghalaya, Assam, Mizoram and Tripura, in Jhum cultivation is unaffected by Bt hybrid cotton invasion. Now it is economical to procure and gin from north east and transport at lower price to destination by rail or shipping from Chittagong port in neighbouring Bangladesh. As the Govt of India policy to act east and spend 10% of its budget, Assam Comilla cotton cultivation can be encouraged with incentives which can lead to better employment generation and increase in farmers income.
Similarly, Punasa cotton (G. arboreum indicum) from north coastal Andhra Pradesh state, India, is also suitably available for export quality surgical cotton. However, commercial exploitation of these land races outside their home of production is subjected to the laws of the recently created National Biodiversity Authority of India (NBDAI). A possible way out is to procure cotton lint from the natural home of their production, ginning and crushing the seeds for oil onsite through one step by middle men which can reduce transportation cost by 65%. On farm trials were conducted by the authors under ICAR-world Bank funded National Agriculture Technology Project, Rainfed cotton Production System (RCPS-9) titled 'Development and evaluation of Technologies for Indigenous cottons'' in North east region. Agro economical study was conducted on G. arboreum cotton production sites which were extrapolated to current US $ prices for benefit of farmers, policy makers and young entrepreneurs to identify the optimum surgical cotton varieties, location and prices.

Experimental site character
G. arboreum cotton was commercially grown (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004) on or before large scale expansion of Bt hybrid cotton were selected for this study.

Adilabad (AP), India
Experiments were conducted in Gaorani cotton tract at Agricultural Research station, Mudhol (18 58° 77 55° E) of Professor Jaishankar Telangana State Agricultural University, in Adilabad district of Telangana state, India. This site had both shallow red soils and medium deep gravelly vertisols. Normal annual rainfall of the district was 1045 mm.

Srikakulam (A.P)
On farm trials were also conducted at villages in Ponduru, Amudalavalsa, district in north coastal Andhra Pradesh of south eastern India with 900 and 150 mm SW and NE monsoon.

Diphu Assam
Onfarm trials were also conducted in Karbi Anglong district of Assam state, in north east India. The soils were sandy loams with steep slopes with 765 and 250 mm SW and NE monsoon.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Seeds were planted at the experimental sites at 0.6 m x 0.30 m plant spacing in Adilabad and broadcasted in green gram on farm trials in Jhum cultivation at Diphu (Assam), India. Punasa cotton is often broadcasted as annual crop in the back yards of weavers along the coast line in red lateritic and coastal sandy loam soils without any fertilizers and manures. Hill / red cotton however, dibbled in groundnut / green gram mixed cropping at 1x1 m a part. Hill cotton is often ratooned with a higher yields and earliness besides drought mitigation at Srikakulam. Fertilizer dose of 60:30:30 kg ha -1 N: P2O5: K2O were applied only at Adilabad. Topdressing of N: K2O fertilizers 29:38 kg ha -1 with September rains after harvest of legume mixed crop at Srikakulam. There is no fertilizer/ pesticides supply in north eastern India, the crop was grown by default as organic under Jhum (slash and burn) cultivation at Diphu, Assam, India. Crop was harvested at the maturity weighed and calculated per unit area. Need based plant protection measures were followed in Adilabad and Srikakulam sites as per the requirement. Micronaire was analysed by HVI instrument at ICAR-Central Institute for Research on Cotton Technology (CIRCOT) Mumbai, Ginning Training Centre (GTC), Nagpur. Fish jaw combing is a local practice at Srikakulam for cleaning cotton, removing short fibres besides ginning by jerk on a wooden board with ruler and bow for opening cotton before chording.

Ponduru cottons micronaire
They were suitable for surgical cotton in general and Punasa cotton in particular for premium quality range (Table 1) does not need any bleaching. Lower cost of production, absence of MSP/ competitive market forces besides cheaper labour availability for production, ginning and cleaning are ideal conditions for surgical cotton industry in north coastal Andhra Pradesh, India. Contract farming for lint supply is good offer for local farmers/ entrepreneurs through Khadi and village industries controlled local weaver co operative societies like Andhra Fine khadi Karmika Sangham at Ponduru and Srikakulam Fine khadi at Srikakulam is organizing production and processing of these cottons since decades. Seeds after cleaning and ginning is used by local farmers as animal feed which had ready market and nutrients are recycled in local farms as farm yard manure.

Ponduru cotton production systems
Punasa cotton (Table 2) is predominantly cultivated only as pure crop in coastal sandy clay loam soils. This area is controlled by Srikakulam Fine Khadi Society located behind court complex with its retail outlets located in Srikakulam town and villages. Limited extent of red cotton is also grown by them under high rainfall area. The farmers economy is maintained with high plant density usually grown as back yard crop in red, sandy loams and black soils for ready to spin into yarn by rural women.
Punasa cotton is suitable as direct introduction in to surgical cotton cultivation with minimal care. N fertilizers application of 58 kg ha -1 and advance payments will be more useful under contract farming. These soils also need N K fertilizer application at least as top dressing for reasonable profit of US $ 1000 ha -1 for Punasa seed cotton and red cotton ratoon (Tables 3 and 4).

Red soils
Red and hill cottons are predominantly cultivated as mixed crops and often ratooned to face the competition from mixed ground nut / sesame / green gram and black gram. Absence of basal fertilizer application, intercultures operations, rain water conservation harvesting and recycling as supplemental irrigations besides grey mildew control measures are constraints in cotton production. Small boll size (2 g) and large number of bolls (400 plant -1 ) requires frequent pickings by family labour. Animal pennings for 3-4 days and application FYM are only avenues to maintain soil fertility, besides top dressing of 23:58:75 N:P 2 O 5 :K 2 O application after September rains or after harvest of mixed crop is a local practice due to fear of competition. Top dressing urea found to be very effective under poor N supply. Grey mildew damage is very severe after August rains for ratoon cotton besides occasional losses from boll worms. Ratoon crop matures earlier and produces more than seed crop which has to survive in severe summers. Beheading of cotton leaving one feet height was found superior instead of re sprouting the entire plant. Poor plant stand is also a yield constraint some times gaps filled with seeds. Very high expenditure on manual hoeing and hand weedings can pave way for post emergence herbicides reducing cost of production (Tables 5 and 6). Soils were deficient in potassium and responded well to NK topdressing in September after harvest of legume crop.

Medium black soils
Ratooning is producing more than seed crop. Plant stand of ratoon crop is sufficient but difficult to maintain under severe summer in the absence of irrigations. Lower moisture holding capacity of the soils, boll worms damage and grey mildew are limitations which need attention (Table 7).

Sandy loam soils
Ratoon is producing more than seed crop, therefore, wide spread rationing is followed which is leading to more      grey mildew and pink boll worm problem. Lower moisture holding capacity of the sandy loam soils is a severe limitation where mixed cropping is followed (Table 8). Hill cotton needs adequate manuring and topdressing of N, K fertilizers to get required economical yield and profitability (Table 8).
Assam Comilla cottons are 3 rd in order of profit for both farmers and entrepreneurs under mixed farming situations of Jhum cultivation along with green gram with no external inputs being low yielders they were next only to LD 230 and RG-8 (Table 9). Premium quality pricing if paid can be expanded and second quality by LD 230 and RG-8 if NBDAI restricts its commercial cultivation. Although improvement of these cottons were initiated by breeders but maintaining higher boll weight and coarseness is difficult except under hybrid conditions as observed by at ARS, Mudhol (Laxman, 2009) which was notified as MDLABB-1 and CICR, Nagpur hit the head lines and attracted attention of cotton world on the cotton productivity (Anonymous, 2013). Pure line selections were made within local ecotypes at RARS, Diphu, Karbi Anglong district (Assam) and were tested in NATP project RCPS-9 but seeds could not be maintained by respective breeders.
Gaorani cotton tract is once the home of desi cottons covering two states of Telangana and Maharashtra states. This tract is now gets severe competition with Bt hybrid cottons although they may not give 1000 US $ but that is expected for a fairly good standard of living for farmers. This target can be achieved by premium quality LD 491 followed by Lohit and G-27. After this MDL 1875, K-10, LD-230 AKA-7 and AKA 8401 can be profitable in second quality for national requirement (Table 10). However, in the absence weighted premium for Bt trait and ginning out turn they cannot be competitive with Bt hybrid cotton.
Vidarbha and Malwa regions of Central India was once commercial production centres for desi cottons were totally replaced by Bt hybrid cotton (Table 11) due to boll worm susceptibility except pockets in Jalgaon of Khandesh region, Melghat of Amraoti and Murtizapur of Akola (MS) in Vidarbha region. Y-1, JLA-794, Jawahar Tapti, AKA-5 were used by local surgical industry for surgical cotton production. MPKV, Rahuri recently released Phule Dhanwantary, which produced higher seed cotton yield 1418 kg ha -1 over Y-1 1279 kg ha -1 and JLA-794 1292 kg ha -1 . It had absorbency of 1.9 s and sinking time 2.0 s. with water holding capacity 26.7 g /g of cotton as compared to Y-1 6.5 and 8.5 s and 25.0 g /g of cotton, respectively used for surgical cotton production for local requirement. G-27, RG-8, LD-491, Lohit, LD-230 and Karbi cotton were profitable with weighted premium to local farmers in medium deep soils.

Conclusion
Premium quality surgical cotton with a competitive price advantage is in the natural home of G. arboreum cernum/ indicum cottons. Processing centres can encourage LD 230 and RG-8 in north east India under jhum cultivation, adequate manuring and NK fertilizers are essential at