Central Institute for Cotton Research

Central Institute for Cotton Research abbr. CICR is central research institute established (in 1976) by the Indian
Council of Agricultural Research to promote long term research efforts in cotton production and provide support and
conduct applied research on cotton with the active involvement of State Universities. The research efforts of CICR fall
under the All India Coordinated Cotton Improvement Project (AICCIP), initiated by the Council in 1967. Its
headquarters are located in Nagpur and the other two regional units are located at Coimbatore, Tamil
Nadu and Sirsa, Haryana.

Pilot projects[edit]
Maharashtra Government in collaboration with the CICR, implemented a pilot project in the Vidarbha region (highly
prone to farmer suicides), based on a Brazilian model to enhance the per-acre yield of cotton while reducing its peracre cultivation cost. The Brazilian model is based on straight cotton crops while Indian government's model
promotes the use of Bt cotton crops.[1][dead link][2]
Cotton plays a key role in the national economy in terms of direct and indirect employment and income generation in the agricultural and
industrial sectors. Textiles and related exports of which cotton constitutes nearly 65%, account for nearly 33% of the total foreign exchange
earnings of our country which at present is around 12 billion dollars with a potential for a significant increase in the coming year.
India is the only country to grow all the four species of cultivated cotton Gossypium arboreum and G.herbaceum (Asian
cotton), G.barbadense (Egyptian cotton) andG.hirsutum (American upland cotton) besides hybrid cotton. Gossypium hirsutum represents
90% of the hybrid cotton in India and all the current Bt cotton hybrids areG.hirsutum.
Cotton is cultivated in three distinct agro-ecological regions (north, central and south) of the country. India has the largest acreage (103.29
lakh.ha) under cotton which accounts for 33% of the global cotton area and has the productivity of 517 kg lint/ha and ranks second in
production (295 lakh bales) during 2009-10. It contributes to 23% of the global cotton produce. Approximately 65% of India's cotton is
produced on dry land and 35% on irrigated lands. The northern zone is almost totally irrigated, while the percentage of irrigated area is much
lower in the central (23%) and southern zones (40%). The lowest being in the central zone, which has nearly 60% of cotton area of our
country. Under the rainfed growing conditions rainfall ranges from <400 to > 900 mm coupled with aberrant precipitation patterns over the
years leading to large-scale fluctuations in production. In the irrigated tract canal and well irrigation are resorted to including the use of microirrigation system.
India has become a significant exporter of cotton since 2005/06 due to successive bumper crop and the second largest exporter next to USA,
particularly in the year 2009/10 India has exported around 81 lakh bales which is around 18% of the total world export. As per DGCIS
estimate India has exported 919 Metric tonnes of cotton in terms of raw cotton, waste and yarn in the year 2008/09 and the figure increased
to 1605 metric tonnes in the year 2009/10 which is around 43% increase over 2008/09. It is estimated that around 20 million farmers cultivate
cotton in India and about 46 million persons are employed directly by the ginning pressing, trade, knitting, handloom, processing and cotton
related textile industry. There are more than 38 million spindles, five lakh rotors, 1687 spinning mills, and an estimated 180 composite mills
under Non-SSI in India. Therefore cotton production in India is considered to have a wide reaching impact not only on the livelihood of
farmers and economy of the country, but also on international trade.
The north zone (Punjab, Haryana and Rajastan) occupies only 11.39% of the total cultivated area but contributes around 11.29% of the
production and varieties /hybrids (including Bt hybrids) limited to only G.hirsutum and G.arboreum. The central zone (Maharahtra, Madhya
Pradesh and Gujarat ), occupying more than 67.23% of the total area but contributes around 62.11% to the total production and is
characterized by rampant proliferation of hybrids. Bt technology has been extensively adopted in this region. The south zone (Karnataka,

Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu) is typical of all types of cotton, hybrids (inter and intra-specific, diploid and tetraploid) and varieties (diploid
and tetraploid). The south zone is occupying 20.11% of area and contributing nearly 25.19% in national production. Among the major cotton
growing states Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh which constitutes 77% of the cotton area and produces around 77% of the total
cotton produce of the country.

Keeping in view the importance of this crop in our national agricultural and economic scenario, it received special attention of the
Government earlier through Indian Central Cotton Committee and now through the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.
Further the research efforts under All India Coordinated Cotton Improvement Project. (AICCIP) were initiated by the Council in the year 1967.
The establishment of AICCIP gave new fillip and direction in terms of multi- disciplinary and multi-centre approaches with the active
involvement of State Agriculture Universities.
With a view to develop a Centre of excellence for carrying out long term research on fundamental problems limiting cotton production and
also to provide basic support to location specific applied research work being carried out in a network of cotton research centres in the
country through the AICCIP system, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research has established the Central Institute for Cotton Research at
Nagpur in April, 1976.
The erstwhile Regional Station of lARl at Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu) became a part of CICR simultaneously to cater to the needs of southern
cotton zone. In the year 1985, the IARI Regional Station at Sirsa (Haryana) was transferred to CICR as a regional centre for the northern
irrigated cotton zone.

Objectives

To conduct basic and strategic research on cotton to improve yield, fibre quality and by products

To create new genetic variability for location specific adoption in cotton-based cropping systems

To Collect, conserve, evaluate and cataloguing of Cotton germplasm

Development of appropriate farming/cropping system for different cotton growing zones and their effective soil fertility
management

Development of effective and efficient disease and pest management strategies

To coordinate network research with state agencies

To assist in transfer of modern cotton production technology to various user agencies

To extend consultancy and links with international agencies to accomplish the above mandate

Research Farm
Nagpur :
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In the initial stages the Institute had two farms for field research one of 41. 77 hectares at Panjri and another of20 ha. at Phutala onNational
High Way No.6. After shifting to the main building in 1986, the farm at Phutala was handed over to Dr. PDKV. Simultaneously the Institute
has acquired additional land of 134.32 ha. adjacent to Panjri Farm. Now a comprehensive block of 176.09 ha. is available for the institute
needs at Panjri Farm. Concerted efforts were made within the allocated funds to ,develop the entire farm into a good research farm in terms
of creation of blocks, levelling and digging of tubewells for providing irrigation to some specific areas etc. Labour sheds and farm buildings
were constructed in each of the three blocks. Pucca roads are being laid to cover part of the farm area. Seven farm ponds of varying
capacities for harvesting runoff water and enabling its reuse were created.

The excellence of the work done by Scientists of this Institute has been well recognized by the following
awards.

The Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Memorial Prize

The first team award by I.C.A.R for excellence in Cotton Research

The Indian Merchant's Chamber Award for progress in Agricultural Research

Award of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)-New Delhi

The SS Bains Memorial Award for Agronomy Research

Plant Protection Association of India

East India Cotton Association

Prof. Dastur Memorial Gold Medal for significant contributions in Cotton Physiology

(ISCI) ISCI award for significant contributions in Cotton Entomology.

The Indian Society for Cotton Improvement sponsored HEXAMR award to the Scientists for
significant contributions in the field of Cotton Entomology, Pathology, Breeding, Physiology and Soil
Science.

Shwet swarnima award for best hindi publication 2000

Best Annual report award for "CICR Annual Report" for the year 2002-03

Second Best Maintained Garden award for CICR Regional Station Lawn for the year 2005

The tean Led by Dr K R Kranthi, Head, Crop Protection, CICR Bags outstanding
multidisciplinary team research in agriculture and allied sciences Award of ICAR 2005

CICR hindi publication won second prize for the best hindi publication for the year 2004-05 organised by
ICAR for the publication Shweth swarnima . TheGanesh shankar vidyarthi hindi pathrika puraskar being received
by the Director Dr. BM Khadi. Also seen are Honourable Director General Dr Mangala Rai, ICAR

Choudhary Devi lal out-standing award for All India Coordinated Research Project for All India
coordinated Cotton Improvement Project for the year 2006

CICR recived Rashree Tandon Award 2006

Dr. S. Vennila received ICAR-Punjabrao Deshmukh Woman Agricultural Scientist Award for the year
2007

Dr. M. V. Venugopalan received ICAR Award for Team Research for the year 2007

Dr. J. Gulsar Banu received Environmentalist of the year award 2007

Dr. D. Blaize received NAAS Associateship 2007

Dr. Sandhya Kranthi received ICAR-Punjabrao Deshmukh Woman Agricultural Scientist Award for the
year 2008

Dr. K.K. Bandyopadhyay received NAAS Associateship 2008

Dr. K.R. Kranthi received NAAS Fellow 2009

Dr. K.R. Kranthi received ICAC- International Cotton Researcher of the Year Award- 2009

Dr J. Gulsar Banu received Dr. (Mrs.) Jagadiswari Rao Woman Scientist Award- 2009

Dr. K.R. Kranthi received Bremen Award 2010

Dr M, Amutha received Junior Scientist of the year award - 2010

Institute Research Council (IRC):

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The IRC is functioning at all the three centres of the Institute meeting atleast twice a year. In the IRC meeting the research programmes of
the Institute/Reg. Station are comprehensively reviewed and the technical programme approved for implementation. The new project
proposals submitted by the scientists are also considered critically and approved. The IRC meeting are chaired by the Director.

Research Highlights
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The main mission of CICR is to improve the production, productivity and profitability of cotton cultivation in all the distinctly different agroecological cotton growing zones of the country through the development of relevant, feasible and economically viable and ecologically
friendly production and protection technologies including the development of improved varieties and hybrids and fundamental research
pursuits in all the disciplines to further our understanding of the crop vis--vis the ambient biotic and abiotic environment.
The past achievements of the Institute are summarized below:

Social Sciences
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The major risk aversion tendencies observed were varietal combination, use of F2 seeds, use of less than recommended dose of
fertilizers, more than recommended number of sprays, resort to natural farming and institutional credit shyness.

Yield gap models showed that plant density gap in hybrid and soil dummy in variety were the major significant variables
responsible for the yield gap while nutrient gaps is common to both.

Instability in yield was found to increase simultaneously particularly resource poor conditions leading to violent fluctuations during
adverse years and thereby affecting the average performance.

The major constraints reported were the incidence of pests especially bollworm (62%), poor quality/ineffective chemicals (51%),
non availability of canal water on time (48%), non-availability of power supply (48%), tied up credit (39%), non-availability of quality seed
(37%),use of non-notified varieties(41%)improper use of chemicals mixing/cocktailing chemicals on own or at the advice of the dealers(35%)
and loss due to leaf curl virus(12%).

Bt cotton has recorded significant increase in yield (2-5 q/ha), savings in plant protection expenses (Rs.1600-Rs.4000/ha),
additional returns (Rs.2800-15000 /ha).The awareness and adoption level has increased with seasons.RCH-2 Bt has performed better than
MECH Bt. There are many unapproved Bt hybrids in cultivation in A.P. and Gujarat performing better, but are causes for concern from
management point of view.

Historical data collected from 40 organic cultivators revealed that organic cotton production is a mode or risk aversion, cost
reduction motivated by premium of Rs.230-700/q and cost reduction of Rs.1900/ha.Further, the yield and price stability were high among
organic farms. It has to be localized and cannot be a substitute for intensive farming.

Commodity diversion model results indicated that delay in cash payment and improper grading were the inducing factors for
cotton diversion from the monopoly procurement than price difference and avoidance of credit recovery.

Criteria for research problem selection among cotton scientists in India were studied and it was found that priority of the
organization set by various mechanisms has emerged as the most important criteria followed by foreign collaborations, feedback from
clients, current hot topics and contribution to scientific theory and publication probability.

High degree of alienation from land was observed among cotton growers and perceived quality of life has become somewhat
worse for majority of cotton growers.

Current financial condition of a family has become a serious problem for more than half of the cotton growers and seventy per
cent of cotton growers are very concerned about returning the loan they taken for agriculture.

A major portion of variance in technology adoption behavior of cotton growers related to adoption of hybrid cotton is explained by
the Model, which includes variables like spatial distribution, availability of the technology, marketing strategy, pricing, and promotional
communication.

Reference[edit]
1.

Jump up^ Makarand Gadgil. "Maharashtra govt to test Brazilian model in Vidarbha". LiveMint. Retrieved June
21, 2012.

2.

Jump up^ "Indian government still flip flopping on GM trials". September 28, 2014.