Continuous rain in Malwa has paddy growers worried

Kulwinder Sandhu

Tribune News Service

Moga, August 27

Incessant rainfall in the Malwa belt of Punjab for the past 24 hours has raised the eyebrows of the farming community.

They fear that the rainfall may hit the early sown varieties of both paddy and cotton, the main crops of the region. Besides, it can also increase the threat of pest attack due to hot and humid weather conditions.

However, senior authorities of the state Agriculture Department and the state agriculture university claimed that there was no threat to the crops, except for a small pocket of few villages in the Mansa district where white fly has been spotted on the cotton plants. However, the rain was likely to wash away white fly in a natural way, they said.

Dr Baldev Singh Dhillon, Vice-Chancellor of Punjab Agriculture University, and Dr Jasbir Singh Bains, Director of the state Agriculture Department, along with the agriculture scientists of the Malwa belt and the adjoining belts of Haryana and Rajasthan, held a review meeting at Abohar today. They also visited the fields in the nearby areas.

Talking to The Tribune, Dr Bains said farmers needed to be careful if rain continued for another couple of days. They should drain out extra water from the inundated fields. The farmers had been advised to spray potassium nitrate and magnesium sulphate on the early sown varieties of paddy, he added.

In parts of the Mansa belt, where white fly has been spotted, the farmers have been asked to spray oberon pesticide, said Dr Sukhdev Singh Sidhu, deputy director of the Agriculture Department.

On the other hand, normal life was disrupted in Moga, Kotkapura, Ferozepur, Abohar, Baghapurana, Nihalsinghwala, Fazilka, Bathinda, Muktsar and many other cities and towns of the state.