The Bt-cotton crop in Punjab is under the suspected attack of a new disease. After more than a year of study, Punjab Agricultural University is still unable to tell which enemy is it that turns part of the cotton-plant stem black. The district agriculture department has advised farmers cure for root rots, another disease that starts from roots. The farmers who noticed stems turning black before the plants went dead asked the district agriculture department for help. The samples of the affected plants are under examination at the PAU. It isn't the first investigation of these symptoms. Similar symptoms appeared last year on cotton plants at a village near Abohar. The Central Institute for Cotton Research at Nagpur, Maharashtra, besides the PAU, studied the samples.