About 400 cotton scientists from national institutes, state agricultural universities and the private sector will participate in the meeting. The prominent guests include Dr P.L. Gautam, Deputy Director General (Crop Sciences) of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Dr K.C. Jain, Assistant Director General, ICAR, Dr B.M. Khadi, Director, Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR), Nagpur and Dr N. Gopalakrishanan, Project Coordinator (Cotton), Coimbatore. Dr Gautam will be the chief guest while PAU Vice-Chancellor Dr Manjit Singh Kang will preside over the inaugural session on April 9.

PAU Director Research Dr P.S. Minhas will deliberate on cotton scenario in Punjab. Dr Gopalakrishanan will present highlights of AICCIP. Dr Khadi and Dr Jain will deliver special addresses on cotton.

Dr B.L. Bhardwaj, Head, Department of Plant Breeding, Genetics and Biotechnology said that the progress of cotton research conducted during 2007 in various research centres of the country will be discussed. According to Dr Manjit Singh Gill, Incharge, Cotton Section, this is the first national level meeting on cotton to be held at PAU.

Deliberations will also be made for future research priorities on cotton and the technical programme of work. This will cover various aspects of cotton research (breeding, agronomy, pathology, entomology, physiology) and development (transfer of technology, seed production etc.) for 2008 will be finalized.