Pakistan needs to collaborate with China to exchange cotton germplasms and share knowledge and scientific approaches for higher quality yield, says Muhammad Tehseen Azhar, Faculty Member, Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF), and Lecturer-Chair of Germplasm and Genetic Stocks, ICGI in a TexTalks report. Collaboration is imperative as Pakistan does not have the required cotton for machine picking. It is still on the list of developing countries, and there’re lots of differences in cotton research between Beijing and Pakistan, like the lack of proper infrastructure in agriculture, added Azhar.
Germplasm is the baseline of breeding, so a breeder cannot conduct any experiment without germplasm. Therefore, a gene pool that has all the desirable genes needed for the development of variety is longed by scientists and it calls for efforts from scholars of different nations
Azhar also emphasized on the consolidation and standardization in the cotton seed industry in Pakistan. He noted that cotton outputs in Pakistan have plunged to 21-year lows these days, threatening the livelihoods of growers and textile sector’s viability.
