Incidence Of Whitefly Is Under Control Up Till Now: PAU
Author(s): City Air NewsLudhiana, July 21, 2016: All out efforts are being made by the PAU and Department of Agriculture to manage the incidence of whitefly in cotton this year. The whitefly management strategy started rolling last year...
Ludhiana, July 21, 2016: All out efforts are being made by the PAU and Department of Agriculture to manage the incidence of whitefly in cotton this year. The whitefly management strategy started rolling last year when the Government of Haryana constituted an Expert Committee on October 12, 2015 under the Chairmanship of Dr B.S.Dhillon, Vice Chancellor, PAU for whitefly management in the States of Punjab and Haryana. The committee developed an action plan starting with eradication of weeds, which serve as alternate hosts to whitefly, in the month of February and then neem based spray in the initial stages of cotton crop followed by use of chemicals if the incidence increases.
The Government of Punjab constituted another Inter-State Monitoring and Consultative Committee on 4 June, 2016 for whitefly management under the Chairmanship of PAU VC. Since then, he is holding meetings almost every week with the PAU experts, officials of the Department of Agriculture, representatives of Haryana Agricultural University, Hissar, ICAR-Cotton Research Institute, Sirsa and Rajasthan Agricultural University Bikaner in the cotton growing districts of the State to monitor the incidence of whitefly, review the progress and firm up the strategy for next week. Focus is laid on Fazilka district where incidence of whitefly is relatively higher.
PAU VC is extensively visiting farmer’s fields along with Director and other officials of Agriculture Department and PAU Scientists. The monitoring and surveillance of the cotton crop by the PAU started as early as May 8, 2016. Up to now, PAU has organized 15 training camps for Scouts and Field Supervisors to train them in the surveillance and management methods of cotton whitefly and 13 training camps for 1917 Pesticide dealers in order to educate them about the judicious use of pesticides for whitefly management. Besides this, the University Scientists have covered more than 400 cotton growing villages and have held 125 farmers training camps for monitoring the whitefly incidence and suggest its effective management methods. By the extensive efforts of PAU and Department of Agriculture and with the cooperation of cotton growers adopting suggested strategy of using neem-based sprays followed by chemical sprays if needed, the incidence of whitefly is under control up till now. PAU is hopeful for the good cotton crop this season.