After whitefly, jassid pest attack on cotton

Tribune News Service

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Bathinda, August 3

The attack of jassid pest has been witnessed on the cotton crop in Mansa and Bathinda districts. Jassid pest sucks juice from leaves and makes them harder.

The jassid pest attack has been witnessed above the Economic Threshold (ET) level of three pests per leaves. The pest has crossed the ET level in many areas of Bathinda and Mansa.

High humidity and temperature is a suitable for the growth of jassid pest and whitefly.

However, the Agriculture Departments in Mansa and Bathinda districts have accepted that the jassid pest attacked the crop but claimed that whitefly was under control and below the ET level.

Officials of the Agriculture Department in Bathinda and Mansa had conducted a survey in several villages and organised camps.

“High humidity and warm temperature creats favourable conditions for the sucking pests, including whitefly and jassid pest. The jassid attack has been witnessed in some villages and only in some areas has it crossed the ET level but the farmers have sprayed necessary the pesticides on their crops and this will also come under control. The jassid are sucking pests and farmers are advised to spray Confidor, Thiomithoxin, Iktara or Rogar pesticide on their crops where the pest is above the ET level. We hope this time there would be a bumper crop but this can only be predicted after ten days. The rain is the need of the hour,” said Nachattar Singh Aulakh, Chief Agriculture Officer, Bathinda.

Gurditta Singh Sidhu, Chief Agriculture Officer, Mansa, admitted that the jassid attack was witnessed in some areas of the district. He said farmers were spraying pesticides on their crops and the jassid attack could be easily controlled but the spray also kills the friend-insects. He said to counter whitefly, farmers were advised to spray neem as at this stage no pesticide was needed because the ET level of whitefly attack was at an average of 2.0.

A team of agricultural experts from the centre had visited villages in Mansa and Bathinda for two days to conduct a survey of the whitefly attack. However, after paying a visit to some villages, the team found that whitefly is under control.

The farmers are advised to spray boiled neem on the cotton or moong crops that are witnessing the whitefly attack. Farmers are advised to boil 10 kg of neem in 15 litres of water that should be reduced to 10 litres after boiling. The reduced 10 litres of neem water should be mixed with 100 litres of water and can be sprayed on the cotton crop affected with whitefly in around two acres.

This year, the area under cotton has already reduced following the whitefly attack, which took place last year and damaged the entire cotton crop in the cotton belt. Most of the farmers, who have decided not to sow BT cotton this year, have switched either to desi cotton or to paddy.

In Bathinda this year, cotton is sown in around 95,000 hectares of land whereas last year the area under cotton was 1.12 lakh hectares. Similarly, in Mansa, around 67,000 hectares area is sown under cotton as against 73,000 hectares area as compared to last year.

The farmers have preferred desi cotton this year and the area under desi cotton has increased from 500 hectares to 2,000 hectares.

This year, the government has recruited around 130 scouts for 284 villages which are considered as a unique step to counter whitefly. These scouts are aware of the cotton crop as they belong to the agricultural families.

The scouts will inform the Agriculture Department about the status of whitefly and will report the department every day about the crop in their village.