Cotton cultivation hangs in balance as water crisis worsens

LAHORE: Amid growing water shortage, the plantation of cotton remains inconclusive as ideal sowing time is about to lapse in a couple of days, a provincial agriculture official said on Tuesday.

The official figures show that out of national target of 7.28 million acres, about 62 percent area could hardly be brought under cotton crop till May 28, 2018. Sowing was relatively lesser affected by water shortage in the Punjab province. The latest data has revealed that cotton could only be sown at 4.39 million acres or 77 percent of the targeted area of 5.70 million acres in Punjab.

In Sindh province, water scarcity has also hit the sowing badly. Out of a target of 1.50 million acres, only 0.68 million acres could be brought under cotton plantation in Sindh, showing a progress of about 46 percent.

The official said ideally, cotton sowing should be completed by end of May. “Late sowing simply means lower produce and damaged fibre,” the official said.

He added that late planting had a highly negative impact on most of varieties in the form of delaying flowering, reducing yield of seed cotton coupled with poor fibre quality.

The short season crop naturally produces less, while small plants had to face the wrath of high temperatures in early days. More worryingly, pre-monsoon and early monsoon rains that start from around June 10 are also capable of hardening the, soil for yet to be germinated seed, while newly cultivated plants could be submerged in heavy rains.

The official said the late sowing also resulted in shorter plants. “As a result of delayed sowing, the plant canopy remained below normal, increasing onslaught of whitefly and pink bollworm,” the official said and added that late planted crop caused significant reduction in yield in the later stage due to low temperature and poor exposure of sunlight at the end of the season.

A senior official of Punjab agriculture department admitted that late sowing would definitely adversely affect the output of cotton.

He expressed concern over unprecedented shortage of water that has hit cotton sowing badly. “We have asked growers in the sweet water zone to go for cotton plantation through use of tube well water,” the official said.

He said there was no option but to utilise relatively costly option of tube well amid extreme paucity of canal water. “In the later stage of crop, we may get water from canals as snowmelt was expected to star from mid of June,” he added.

Currently, water inflows in rivers are significantly low if compared with average volumes. River Indus at Tarbela was just 50,900 cusecs against last year’s flow of 190,000 cusecs recorded on the same day. River Kabul at Nowshera was flowing at 20900 cusecs over last year’s flow of 73,000 cusecs. Jhelum River at Mangla was flowing at 34, 400 cusecs against last year’s inflow of 66,000 cusecs. Similar is the case with Chenab flows.