Monday | 13 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
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Monday | 13 January 2025 | Epaper

Resurfacing of wheat blast worries Meherpur farmers

Published : Tuesday, 24 January, 2017 at 12:00 AM  Count : 283
MR Alam
MEHERPUR, Jan 23: Wheat blast has come back quite early this season after a year of its first outbreak, causing concern of production losses for farmers in the district.
Though the government discouraged farmers in the district from cultivating wheat this year, some still went for wheat cultivation. Already blast resurfacing on plant leaves in some wheat fields here has been reported,  sources said.
According to Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) around four thousand hectares of land have been brought under wheat cultivation this year in the district despite prohibition from the government side.
Last year, all the wheat fields in the district had been attacked with blast disease last year and farmers were compelled to burn the same. The DAE made extensive publicity to discourage the farmers from wheat cultivation this year, but the farmers cultivated wheat ignoring the government's suggestion. The farmers are now not getting any fruitful result after spraying pesticides on their wheat fields and become confounded, the DAE sources added.
Rafiqul Islam a farmer of Govipur village under Sadar upazila said, he had cultivated wheat on four bighas of land last year and was forced to burn his wheat fields due to the disease attack. In the current season, he again cultivated wheat on four bighas of land. This time blast has attacked the flowers, and he is now helpless to check the disease as spraying of pesticides on his fields is not working at all.
Farmer Ashraful Islam of Terail village of Gangni upazila said that the DAE advised for not cultivating wheat this year. But ignoring their advice he cultivated wheat on one bigha land costing Tk 12 thousand for his own consumption. Budding of his wheat not yet seen, however he has become worried seeing the wheat fields of others that have already budded and got affected with blast, he added.
Poritosh Kumar Malakar, chief scientific officer of Wheat Research Center, Dinajpur said, although the blast disease is seed-born, there is every possibility of spreading the germ of disease out from a affected wheat field to other fields through wind. That's why the farmers were advised not to cultivate the crop for the two conjugative years, he also said.  Besides, such disease is found in some districts for advance cultivation.
Golam Faruque, Director of Plant Protection Wing, Khamarbari in Dhaka, said "Fungicide needs to be sprayed before budding. However, we are trying to invent the disease resistant wheat seed, hoping to solve the problem within two years".   
While visiting the affected wheat fields here, one of the team members American Scientist Thimthy J Crupnick opined that the disease may spread out in South Asia including India, Nepal, and Bhutan by crossing the periphery of the country, if it is not solved rapidly.
 He advised the farmers not to fear saying that it could be possible to resist the disease scientifically, and a research is going on in this regard.
He also said that in order to solve the problem, all should work together and cultivation will have to be carried away according to advice of the DAE officials.





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