July 11: To present viable solutions to the problem of Pink Bollworm, which prevails in the Punjab and Haryana region and damages cotton crops on a large scale, a two-day awareness seminar – ‘Innovative strategies for Pink Bollworm management in cotton crops’ was organized. To counter Pink Bollworm, a mating disruption product, CREMIT PBW was also unveiled for the first time in the region at the programme attended by a battery of agricultural scientists, crop experts, and some cotton farmers as well.
The seminar was organized by ATGC Biotech Pvt Ltd, a Hyderabad-based company which focuses on providing area-wide pest management solutions in India and abroad using synthetic pheromones.
This gift of technology was provided to the cotton farmers of Haryana and Punjab in the presence of Dr Y.G Prasad, Director ICAR – CICR. On this occasion, Dr Harinder Singh, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture, Punjab, also marked his presence.
Dr Markandeya Gorantla, Executive Chairman & Managing Director, ATGC Biotech, which has unveiled the path-breaking product, said, “Pheromones are specific chemicals released by female insects into the air to attract males for mating. Males follow the sex pheromone upwind to locate and mate with the female. CREMIT PBW is a mating disruption product exclusively formulated for the management of Pink Bollworm (PBW). Mating disruption aims to disrupt chemical communication between the two sexes of the same insect species by dispensing synthetic sex pheromone.”
Experts said that the new product is capable of reducing the negative impact of Pink Bollworm and protecting the crop yield.
The dignitaries who participated in the seminar included Dr. Y G Prasad, Director, Central Institute for Cotton Research, Nagpur; Dr. N. Bakthavatsalam, Former Director, ICAR-NBAIR-National Bureau of Agricultural Insect Resources, Dr. Rishi Kumar, Principal Scientist, Entomology, Central Institute for Cotton Research, Sirsa; Dr. A.G.Sreenivas, Professor of Agricultural Entomology and Head, UAS, Raichur, Karnataka & Dr.Satnam Singh, Senior Scientist, Punjab Agricultural University.
Dr. Rishi Kumar, Principal Scientist, Entomology, Central Institute for Cotton Research, Sirsa, said, “The innovative product CREMIT PBW disrupts mating of the Pink Bollworm, thus rids the cotton farmers of this problem. It has been widely tested and evaluated in different agro-climatic zones of India.”
Dr.Satnam Singh, Senior Scientist, Entomology, Regional Station, Faridkot, Punjab Agricultural University, Punjab, said that the programme succeeded in creating awareness among the cotton farmers regarding the control and management of the Pink Bollworm. It is worth mentioning that the technologies developed by ATGC Biotech Pvt Ltd address a national problem that does not have any solutions with conventional practices. ATGC is the first Indian company that emerged as the first-in-market for pheromone-based auto confusion and mating disruption technology that offers the solution across a wide range of food, feed, fibre, and fruit crops. The company is currently focusing on scaling up these technologies and making them accessible to farming communities for quality products that are free from harm.
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