Studies on Effect of Seed Treatments on Bt Cotton in Vertisol

Cotton (Gossypium spp. L) is one of the most important commercial cash crop and important fiber crop of global significance cultivated in more than seventy countries. It is an important raw material of economy in terms of both employment generation and foreign exchange and hence it is known as 'White gold' or 'friendly fiber and king of fiber'. The cotton plant belongs to the genus Gossypium of the family Malvaceae. In cotton, flowering is a continuous process. However, all the flowers produced are not retained and harvested. About 40 to 50 per cent of the flowers and bolls are shed due to boll worm attack or due to nutritional stress in general and micronutrients in particular, Hence there is need to supplement the plant with proper micronutrients to produce more number of flowers and retain them on the plant to develop into bolls for final harvesting, so that yield can be increased considerably. Essential micronutrients like Zinc, Iron, Manganese, Copper, Boron and Magnesium plays an important role in physiology of cotton crop and these are being apart of enzyme system or catalyst in enzymatic reactions.