With the cotton crop is Punjab is stung by whitefly pest for the second consecutive year, a Central team would visit the State on Thursday to inspect the crop.
The five-member team of Centre’s Plant Protection Advisor will visit Abohar in Fazilka district where several villages have come under the grip of whitefly pest attack.
The team will comprise Plant Protection Advisor SN Sushil, Assistant Plant Protection Advisor BS Phogat, under the Directorate of Plant Protection, Quarantine and Storage, and one representative each of the Central Integrated Pest Management Centre, Jalandhar, Punjab Agricultural University and Punjab Agriculture department.
“A few pockets of Fazilka, Mansa and Bathinda districts are facing whitefly menace. The Ministry of Agriculture is sending a team to Punjab,” an official statement by the State Agriculture Department said.
“The team will visit the affected villages where whitefly has attacked cotton crop and prepare a report which will be submitted to the Central Government for further action,” said the
Agriculture department spokesperson.
Whitefly pest has again attacked cotton crop in Punjab, posing threat to the Kharif crop. The attack of whitefly on cotton crop, which is now in flowering stage, has been visible in about 15 villages of Khuian Sarwar block of Abohar in Fazilka district.
With farm experts trying their best to prevent any damage to crop, growers have been advised to spray recommended chemicals to save the crop from whitefly which attacks cotton leaves.
Notably, whitefly pest attack had caused widespread damage to BT cotton varieties in Punjab and Haryana last year.
In Punjab, 1.36 lakh hectares out of total 4.50 lakh hectares of cotton acreage was ravaged by whitefly attack last season and the output had dropped by 40 per cent due to large scale pest attack.
This time, the whitefly attack was spotted on cotton crop which was planted near orchards in Abohar which is known for Kinnow fruit.
Cotton area in Punjab saw one of biggest decline in current season as crop area under this Kharif crop shrunk to 2.56 lakh hectares as against 4.50 lakh hectares last season.
With whitefly again being spotted, Punjab Congress had even attacked SAD-BJP combine led State Government while accusing it of having failed in preventing pest attack on the crop.
In the current kharif season, massive training programmes were conducted in cotton-growing areas of Punjab, persuading growers to timely sow recommended varieties of crop, along with other steps to prevent massive crop damage.
Besides, Punjab had hired 500 trained youth for educating growers through training camps to protect their crop from pests including whitefly.