EFFECT OF SAW GINNING ON THE FIBRE QUALITY OF Bt AND NON-Bt COTTON

Abstract

Bt cotton refers to a plant which has Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins in many of its cells. This naturally occurring soil bacterium will be used to reduce insect damage from bollworm, pink bollworm, and budworm. Therefore, farmers who are cultivating the Bt cotton variety will not be subjected to spray pesticides to control these worms. Whereas in this study, the non-Bt cotton (DP-90) refers to the commercially known variety which have no Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins in its cells. During the cultivation of non-Bt cotton varieties, the control of bollworms is done through the application of pesticides, which is a costly exercise in terms of cost of pesticides, spray equipment and labour. Along with the cost of cultivation, the best index to cotton quality is the performance of the fibres during spinning at the textile mill. In the present study the effect of saw ginning to the quality of both varieties was studied. The result could help the spinners to predict the preperformance of both varieties when subjected to the mechanical action of modern high rotating spinning machines parts. Ginning results a significant effect (at 0.05 level of significance) in all other measured fibre quality properties (upper half mean length, length uniformity index, short fibre content by number and by weight, level of neps, single fibre tenacity and elongation) of both Bt and non-Bt (DP-90) cotton varieties. The impact of ginning on the studied fibre quality properties was relatively severer on Bt cotton varieties than non-Bt (DP-90) varieties.