The farmers of several districts in Maharashtra such as Akola, Yavatmal, and Parbhani of Maharashtra are in the middle of a “Civil Disobedience movement” with their demand to use Genetically Modified (GM) plant-herbicide tolerant cotton or HT cotton.
HT cotton contains a ‘cp4-epsps’ gene isolated from a soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens which produces a modified protein that allows the plant to tolerate application of glyphosate.
Glyphosate is a chemical herbicide used to kill the weed without affecting the crop. The chemical is indifferent to weed and crop plants for normal crops but for HT cotton it can distinguish between the crop and the weed.
HT cotton is GM approved crop, unlike Bt Cotton which contains ‘cry1Ac’ and ‘cry2Ab’ genes from Bacillus thuringiensis. Bt cotton produced proteins toxic to various bollworm insect pests.
Cotton is far more susceptible to weeds than crops like sugarcane or soybean and that’s why needs more spacing between two rows of plants and between plants.
Atrazine and Oxyfluorfen are other chemical herbicides used in cotton crops. The most common weeds in the cotton crop are Echinochloa (barnyard grass), Cyperus rotundus (nutgrass), Amaranthus, and Parthenium.
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HT cotton contains a ‘cp4-epsps’ gene isolated from Agrobacterium tumefaciens which produces protein that helps tolerate glyphosate.Interested? Explore more-
