Team to monitor outbreak of apple disease in Shimla, Mandi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, June 24

Director, Horticulture Dr ML Dhiman today constituted a three-member panel of horticulture experts in the directorate to monitor the outbreak of scab in apple orchards in Shimla, Mandi and Kullu districts.

The farmers fear that the onset of monsoon rains can flare up the scab as the “humid and heat conditions” facilitate the fungus that cause scab first on leaves and then on fruit.

“They need chemical sprays at cheaper rates and in good quantities in the HPMC-run centres in the state”, said Harish Chauhan, president, HP Fruit, Vegetable, Flower Growers Association. “We have met the horticulture minister and brought the matter to his notice”, he added.

But the farmers have expressed their unhappiness over the “lacklustre approach” of the horticulture minister, resenting that he did not call a meeting of the officials, scientists and farmers associations to deliberate on the issue.

The scab had destroyed apple crop in 1982 -1986 and the farmers had no option but to destroy apple plants in lower Kullu, Mandi and Shimla districts.

The apple scab has been detected in several orchards in upper Kullu valley and in Banjar sub-division.

The scab has also been detected in Thunag and Janjheli areas, the two top apple- producing areas in Mandi, that fall in Seraj constituency, home segment of Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur.