LAHORE: Secretary Agriculture Punjab Iftikhar Ali Sahoo has called for regular pest scouting, surveillance, monitoring of the cotton crop besides timely control of harmful pest attacks as the month of August is very important to achieve the cotton production target.
He directed an increased field inspection along with divisional expert groups to guide the farmers technically as during the next month there are increased pest attack chances due to heat and humidity.
“So priority measures should be taken for better management of the cotton crop,” the secretary said while presiding over a meeting to review cotton crop and its monitoring and management today.
Briefing on the occasion, the Secretary Agriculture Punjab was informed that the overall situation of cotton in the province was good. The process of picking the early cotton crop was underway and hopefully the yield this year would be better than last year.
There were more than 60 ginning factories operating in Punjab province and so far a record crop had reached these factories.
On this occasion, Director General Agriculture (Extension) Dr Anjum Ali said that cotton is in good condition in Punjab, especially in DG Khan, Bahawalpur and Multan.
However, the attack of whitefly, green oil, thrips and pink bollworm had been observed somewhere, but it had not reached to the economic threshold. After receiving the report about pest attack at any place, the teams of agriculture extension and pest warning were taking immediate care of it, he added.
Secretary Agriculture Punjab directed that farmers should be technically guided to protect cotton in the rainy season and sexual traps should be used for the control of pink bollworm.
Secretary Agriculture Punjab also called for preparing a forecast regarding temperature and hazardous pest attack for the next one week.
The meeting was also attended by Director General Agriculture (Pest Warning) Punjab Rana Faqir Ahmed and other officers while Directors and Deputy Directors of Multan, DG Khan, Bahawalpur, Faisalabad, Sahiwal and Sargodha divisions and Dr Iqbal Bandisha attended online.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023