Cotton crop faces pest attack again

BATHINDA, Aug 11: The high claims of the Punjab Agriculture Department notwithstanding, the cotton crop in various pockets of Bathinda, M...

BATHINDA, Aug 11: The high claims of the Punjab Agriculture Department notwithstanding, the cotton crop in various pockets of Bathinda, Mansa, Moga, Ferozepur, Faridkot, Muktsar and Sangrur is under pest attack.

A visit to the cotton belt revealed that the attack of jasid, spotted bollworm and the leaf curl virus have touched the Economic Threshold level at certain places in the cotton belt. The Punjab Agriculture University surveillance team headed by Joginder Singh, a Senior Entomologist (Cotton) in its report last week had indicated that the attack of leafcurl virus to the cotton crop was up to 72 per cent in certain pockets.

With the attack of these pests especially at a time of fruitification, there is panic among the growers. However, discouraged by the crop failure of past years, they have spent significantly less on inputs this time, but now they are resorting to emergency measures to save their crop.G. S. Dhaliwal, Associate Director of the PAU told The Indian Express over telephone that about 50 per cent of the growers had not sprayed their crop even once by the end of July.

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This is because of their failure to control the pests even after 8 to 10 spells of spray last year.But the sale of pesticides in the cotton belt has gone up tremendously in the past 10 days. According to the information gathered by The Indian Express, the sale of insecticides/ pesticides at the outlets of the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) situated in Punjab has doubled since the past one week.

Since the CCI sells the insecticides against cash, most of the farmers with their economy in shambles are preferring the deal with private dealers or credit. However, the deal with the private traders is not safe. A spokesman of the Agriculture Department told The Indian Express that the samples of at least 10 pesticide-dealers had been found substandard in Bathinda district only during this season. He said that action against such dealers would be taken as per the Insecticides Act.

Dhaliwal said that the crop, as of now, was better than last year, but the weather in the next two months would determine the final outcome.

Meanwhile, the symptoms of haelothis disease have also been identified in certain pockets but its attack is not that severe due to the dry spell the attack of pests on the cotton crop in Punjab was recorded only 7 lakh bales against the target of the agriculture department.