Abohar: Pink bollworm hits ‘narma’ cotton crop

Abohar, June 18

Due to the attack of pink bollworm on narma cotton crop at Telupura village, contract farmers, including Satya Dev, have suffered a huge damage. As soon as the information was received, an Agriculture Department team reached the fields and inspected the crop on Sunday.

Satya said he had grown narma cotton on 8 acres, by taking land on contract. Now the plants have grown to about two feet, but pink bollworm had infested the crop. Apart from this, green bollworm and leaf curl disease have also hit the crop even though he had twice sprayed insecticide on the crop. He said cotton balls were being formed on the plants, but the crops was now starting to get spoiled. The farmer said the last year also, his crop had been damaged by whitefly.

Agriculture Officer Gagandeep Singh inspected the spot. He said the attack of pink bollworm was visible on the crop, but it had not been affected by green bollworm and whitefly. He advised the farmers to use insecticides such as Percolate, Avant and Ethion as was recommended by PAU. He said farmers should keep watering the narma cotton crop. He said most of the attacks of pink bollworm was being seen on the early variety of cotton.