Amritsar, Sep.10 (ANI): The agricultural department in Amritsar, Punjab, organised an agricultural awareness workshop on Saturday with an aim to educate the farmers about the measures that they need to take to prevent crop damage.
The department conducted this awareness campaign so that they could tell them on how to isolate the crops from foot rot bacteria, in order to produce rich yield all around the year.
"There is a variety of basmati rice that is being produced these days. Farmers generally use excess manure and pesticides to protect their crops. In fact, these spoil the crops even further. They should use government-approved manure," said Tara Singh, a farmer.
Farmers were distressed, as the floods had damaged a considerable amount of produce this year in Punjab.
Adding to their misery, two new diseases called 'sheath blight' and 'foot rot' attacked the rice and wheat crops.
The Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) found that these diseases attacked paddy fields in Ropar, Patiala, Ludhiana and Amritsar districts of the state on all varieties, since the present weather conditions are favorable for fungal infections.
"There are various agricultural techniques introduced every now and then. So, we set up camps regularly to spread awareness among farmers. Today also, we have organised this camp. In this area, we generally grow rice and wheat, which gets infected with pests easily. Earlier last year, we suffered the same problem. We have come with ways to control diseases in crops. We request farmers to use only government-recognised manure and pesticides," said Gurdeep Singh, agricultural officer.
The incidence of sheath blight attack on paddy fields remained up to 20 per cent, while incidence of foot rot disease was found to be as high of 40 per cent.
Agricultural officials urged the farmers to take precautionary measures before growing cops, in a bid to reduce pest attacks.
Punjab contributes about 50 percent of the national pool of paddy crop. (ANI)
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