Agriculture Department warns cotton farmers: Pink bollworm threat to production
By 2024-06-28 11:51:42
The Agriculture Department alerts cotton growers to the production threat posed by pink bollworms.
Hanumangarh: The Agriculture Department has warned the farmers of the district that the pink bollworm infestation in BT cotton can again affect production this year. Last year too, the district faced a serious problem of this pest, which badly affected the cotton production.
The area of sowing of BT cotton has remained around 40 percent this time too, despite the department continuously making farmers aware. In view of the possible outbreak of pink bollworm, the department has given information about management measures since February itself. Measures of management have been suggested to disrupt the life cycle of pink bollworm by destroying its pupa stage. However, some farmers did not pay attention to these measures and did early sowing.
In some fields, where early sowing of cotton was done, despite adequate irrigation water and timely irrigation, due to extreme heat, flowers came out in the plants and pink bollworm infestation has been observed.
The department has advised farmers to follow pink bollworm management measures in early sown crops. Spray insecticides on fixed days every week and pluck and destroy the flowers and pods affected by pink bollworm. Use neem based pesticides till 60 days of age and do not use synthetic and ready mix insecticides in BT cotton.
District Collector made aware of farmers' problems
Bhartiya Kisan Union Tikait District Hanumangarh submitted a memorandum to the District Collector on Wednesday under the leadership of District President Resham Singh Manuka. Various demands of farmers were raised in the memorandum, in which compensation of Rs 1125 crore was demanded for the loss caused by pink bollworm last year, but no farmer has received compensation yet.
The farmers demanded the state government to start procurement centers in all mandis for the purchase of groundnut and to start government procurement of moong from September 1. Apart from this, there was a demand to start government procurement of paddy by September 15 at any cost and to provide full electricity to the agriculture sector.
