Punjab Government on Sunday maintained that the farmers using pesticides as per experts’ recommendations have no whitefly effect on their crop. In fact, the whitefly affect was more on crops of farmers using urea in excess and not following department recommendations, it claimed.
The Department stated that the farmers following the recommendations of Punjab Agriculture Department are still having bumper cotton crop in their fields. “There are several farmers who always follow the recommendations of Agriculture Department and stay in constant touch with experts, which leads to bumper crop and huge profits,” he said.
Jagjit Singh Johar, a farmer from Chibranwali village, is having a bumper cotton crop in five acres of his fields. “I have always followed the recommendations of Punjab Agriculture Department and never use excess pesticides in the fields,” he said.
Johar said that he sprayed Obran, Dotara and Neem-based pesticides on his crop twice each and these were recommended by the Agriculture Department. For bumper crops, all farmers should adopt integrated pest management (IPM) in their fields and should never fall prey to excessive use of pesticides or insecticides, he suggested.
Another farmer, Rajwinder Singh of Bhagsar village, said that as per the recommendations of the Punjab Agriculture Department, he sprayed Obran, Dotara and Trizophas on his 12 acres of crop. “I sprayed these insecticides either in the morning or evening and due to which my crop has not been affected by white fly. I thank the Agriculture Department for arranging the pesticides or insecticides on subsidised rates,” he said.
Mahinder Singh, hailing from the same village with eight-acre of crop, said that if the farmers don’t mix pesticides, it could be very beneficial. “Whenever I sprayed the pesticides on my own crop, I also sprayed it on the boundary of my neighbouring farmer so that there is no attack of white fly on his crop and it has shown positive results,” he said.
Their co-villager Beant Singh, having five-acre landholding, said that he has used pesticides as per the recommendations of agriculture department. He claimed that white fly has attacked the crop of farmers who used more of urea on their crops.
“The farmers following recommendations by agriculture department reap huge profits because our recommendations are issued after several years of experiments,” said State Agriculture Department director Mangal Singh.