Yellow rust hits wheat in some areas of dist

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, February 9

The Agriculture Department has been keeping an eye on the yellow rust disease that has hit some areas in the district. Certain cases have also reported from Hoshiarpur and other districts too.

Special teams have already formed in all 10 blocks of the district and they have been directed to intensify field visits.

Yellow rust is a disease which causes losses in crop yield and the disease appears as yellow coloured, powdery linear stripes on leaves.

Two days ago, a high-level team of the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare had visited Mansurpur and Badala villages in the Adampur block and took stock of the attack of the disease on wheat crop.

Earlier also, the Agriculture Department had sensitised farmers by visiting them and organising camps that how could they protect their crops from the disease.

As per information, last year too, some cases were reported from Jalandhar.

The team from the Union Ministry comprising Assistant Director Vikrant Singh and Dr Anju Vaishnav from the Directorate of Wheat Development, Ghaziabad, visited the affected fields where the farmers had sown HD 3086 wheat variety. The team members talked with the farmers who told the former that they had purchased the variety from a private firm.

The team had then said the variety was capable of tackling the disease but despite the symptoms of the disease had appeared on the crop.

They said the chemical test of the plant would be carried out to ascertain the type of variety, whether it was HD 3086 or not.