Cotton growers will possibly increase crop area under DCH-32 variety due its shortage widely felt for last two seasons by domestic spinners.

The extra long staple (ELS) cotton variety yields the 34/36 mm fibre length.

The ELS growing tracts in Karnataka, a major DCH-32 growing State were planning to allocate higher acreage, said Mani Chinnasami, Managing Partner of Appachi Cotton Company.

The higher price realisation has been a strong factor for farmer’s interest on sowing DCH-32 variety.

He said average price for DCH cotton this year remained at Rs 3,500-4,000 per quintal while short and medium staple varieties were fetching Rs 1,700-2,000 this time around. The DCH-32's highest price quote was at Rs 5,000 a quintal.

There are indications of higher sowing of ELS varieties this time as per feed back received from Karnataka farmers, said K.N. Viswanathan, Secretary of South India Cotton Association (SICA).

The yield of DCH-32, which was around 1.5 lakh bales this year was expected to touch about five lakh bales.

Viswanathan said increased yield is expected to come from Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and new tracts of ELS in Andhra Pradesh, besides Tamil Nadu.

Sensing the demand, major cotton seed producers such as Mahyco Seeds Ltd, Rasi Seeds, Nuziveedu and Coimbatore-based Super Spinning Mills, are increasing their ELS seed output
Mahyco is expected to distribute its Bt ELS seeds for 50,000 acres inKarnataka and another 10,000 acres in Tamil Nadu this year.

Demand for ELS cotton among domestic spinners is around 8 lakh-9 lakh bales the projected shortfall despite increased output of DCH-32 variety will be around 15 to 20 percent, spinning industry sources said.