The commercial release of 14 cotton varieties and one hybrid developed by SIMA Cotton Development and Research Association (CD&RA) is set to hit the fields in the ensuing sowing season.

(The sowing season commences from June in the northern part of the country and later from August-September in the South.)

These varieties/ hybrid have been approved for distribution across the State by the Director of Seed Certification and Organic Certification, up to March 2022, M Asha Rani, Head cum Chief Cotton Breeder, SIMA CD&RA told Business Line .

Of the 14 varieties, four are of medium staple length such as SIMA HITECH -1, SIMA Compact -32, SIMA Shakthi and SIMA- 113 and five - long staple varieties such as SIMA -24, SIMA -102, SIMA-M-55, SIMA-J-23 and SIMA-374.

The extra long staple varieties include SIMA-Sivashakthi, SIMA-LI-3, SIMA-5, SIMA-GB-1-5 and SIMA Mahashakthi. The hybrid -SIMA HB-3, which has also been slated for commercial release is an ELS (Extra Long Staple) cotton.

“The medium staple variety SIMA Shakthi is a Bt cotton, suitable for rainfed, high density planting and machine picking. In fact, we are the second in the country to have got the approval for release of a Bt cotton variety,” claims Asha Rani.

“The crop duration of this Bt variety is 155 days; It has given an average yield of 2698 kg/ hectare of cotton seed during trials,.”

“SIMA-GB-1-5, an ELS variety, better known as SIMA Platinum SUVIN would hit the farmers' field only in 2020-21 and SIMA-5, a year later in 2021-22.”

Of the 14 varieties developed by the association, SIMA-102, a long staple variety is said to have registered the highest yield of 3732 kg/hec, with SIMA-374 close behind at 3622 kg/ hec of kappas during trials.

The SIMA CD&RA Head hinted that the TN Government has sought to procure 225 tonnes of ELS cotton through the Cotton Corporation of India during the 2019-20 cotton season and necessary arrangements for adequate supply of seeds were being made.