Scientist awarded for spinning a stronger yarn

NAGPUR: Twenty years of rigorous work, which created 11 drought resistant cotton varieties, by Suman Bala Singh, a principal scientist at Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR), has finally got her recognition. The Indian Society for Cotton Improvement (ISCI) recently honoured her with the prestigious Dr AB Joshi Award for her invaluable contribution to cotton breeding.
An extremely efficient and dedicated Singh, principal scientist in crop improvement division, has been working towards developing straight varieties (non-hybrid varieties) of cotton which are particularly suited for dry land or rainfed areas like Vidarbha. These varieties, besides having good fibre quality, have much higher productivity as compared to other known straight cotton varieties and are also resistant to Jassids, an important cotton pest.
"The biggest advantage of these varieties, like any straight variety, is that the farmer doesn't have to buy seeds every year, he can produce his own seeds. Most produce about 13-15 quintals per hectare as compared to 8-9 quintals of other straight cotton varieties," said Singh.
Beginning from screening the germ plasm for drought tolerance to developing these varieties takes 9-10 years and conducting field trials takes another 5 years. Thus, the process of developing a new variety takes almost 15-20 years. Singh has developed 11 such varieties over 20 years with contribution from AH Prakash, a scientist with the crop production division.
However, unfortunately, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has not released any of the varieties, even though field trials for all were completed by ICAR under the All India Coordinated Cotton Improvement Programme (AICCIP). Singh has applied for registration of one of the major variety, called CNH-30I, to protect her material.
CICR director Keshav Kranthi was all praise for Singh and said that she has been an ardent and silent worker who never bothered to publicize her work. "But her work is really remarkable. Recognition from ISCI is a big achievement for her and the institute as well," he said.
Singh is now working to make the varieties resistant to boll worm, the biggest cotton pest, through genetic modification. She has already introduced the Bt gene into some of them. However, this process too aims at developing straight varieties and not hybrids like Bt cotton.
"We have crossed the BN-Bt or Bikaneri Nerma, CICR's only straight Bt variety with these drought resistant varieties, which will improve their quality further," she said.
Besides developing these 11 varieties, Singh has also been working on introducing 'male sterility' in some other cotton varieties. Male sterility is a phenomenon which prevents cross fertilization or mixing in cotton, and is a good tool to maintain the purity of the variety. It also helps in reducing the cost of production of seeds in hybrid varieties by 30-40%. Singh has developed 135 lines with male sterility.
The CICR has a flagship programme to test suitability of all varieties developed by the institute for high density plantation (cultivating at closer distance than normal) to help increase productivity. Now, Singh has begun testing her varieties under this programme too.