Search for a command to run...
Since transgenic cotton was first grown commercially in India in 1996, the areas cultivated have increased rapidly around the world. Bt cotton is produced by inserting a synthetic version of a gene from the naturally occurring soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis into cotton. Bt cotton may affect nutrient dynamics in many ways during its life-span with regard to the temporal-spatial relevance of Bt proteins. Given this, we aimed to evaluate nutrient availability under both Bt and non-Bt systems and varied soil type. The study was conducted during the 2010 wet season (July to December) in a net-house at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences of Banaras Hindu University. It was carried out on three different soil orders i.e. entisol, inceptisol and alfisol. Bt-cotton (cvNCS-138) and its non-transgenic isoline (cvNCS-138) were grown until maturity. A no crop pot was maintained with three replications for all the three soil orders. Study design was a factorial experiment under a completely randomized block design with three replications. The study concludes that available N was reduced by 12-13% under Bt-cotton compared to non-Bt isoline and no crop treatment whereas it showed a significant increase in available P in the soil under Bt-cotton (7.8% increase) compared to non-Bt isoline and no crop treatment. Furthermore, it has been observed that available K value varied from 82.88 kg ha-1 to 76.88 kg ha-1 in the soil under Bt-cotton and from 90.33 kg hato-1 83.55 kg ha-1 in the non-Bt crops and a significant increase in the Avalaible Zn in the soil under Bt-cotton compared to non-Bt isoline and no crop treatment.