Two hybrid paddy seeds bring woes to farmers
Cultivation of imported hybrid varieties of paddy seeds Jhalak and Sarathi has brought woes to the farmers concerned in Uzirpur and Agoiljhara upazilas of Barisal district.
Neck-blast disease caused by fungus carried through the seeds has led to the situation, agriculture experts said.
The disease causes sterility in paddy sheaves.
District agriculture office sources claimed that hybrid varieties of paddy have been cultivated on 10,108 hectares of land in Barisal district.
Of it, Jhalak variety was cultivated on 115 hectares of land and Sarathi on seven hectares in Uzirpur and Agoiljhara upazilas.
"Jhalak was cultivated on about 90 hectares of land in Mashang, Keshabkathi, Tarasira, Gazalia, Kuralia, Munshir Taluk, Kazi Shah, Jalla, Jambari, Chakman and Harta villages of Jalla and Harta unions under Uzirpur upazila of Barisal by 190 farmers. Most of the plants have been affected by neck-blast disease caused by fungus carried through seeds,” said Uzirpur Upazila Agriculture Officer Alamgir Hossain.
Sixty farmers, who cultivated Jhalak on 18 hectares of land at Ahuti Batra, Kodaldhoa and Baropaika under Agoiljhara upazila of the district, also faced the same fate.
Twenty-six farmers of Jobarpar, Ramdeberpar, Kalibari and other areas in Agoiljhara upazila cultivated Sarathi seeds on seven hectares of land and faced similar production debacle, said Ramendranath Baroi, Agoiljhara upazila agriculture officer.
Sudhanshu Kumar Saha, deputy director of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) said, "During spot visits we found that black spot appeared in the middle of the plant leaves. They are affected by blast disease that finally causes the flowers to die."
"The crop loss has resulted from possible faults in hybridisation of the seeds, especially during plant-quarantine period, and improper trial-test systems," Habibur Rahman, scientific officer of Rice Research Institute in Barisal, said.
"It poses a great danger as the seed-borne disease may transform into an air-borne one, causing its rapid spread to other varieties of crop within kilometres," said the BRRI scientist who along with Sohrab Hossain and Shudhanshu Kumar Saha, DD of DAE Dhaka and Barisal offices, visited the spots in Uzirpur recently.
A number of affected farmers told this correspondent that they cultivated the hybrid varieties with the help of loan money taken from different sources including NGOs.
They said Jhalak and Sarathi plants grew well at the primary stage but most of the plants started drying before ripening of the paddy, they said.
Local distributors Gopinath Saha of Messers New Biz Bhandar, and Bidhan Mandal of Messer's Bijoy Mandal Traders, said 837 kg of Jhalak were sold at Tk 240-250 per kg and 138 kg of Sarathi seeds at Tk-280-300 per kg.
Six kilograms of seeds are needed for per acre and it costs Tk 20,000 to cultivate these varieties of hybrid seeds to get yield of 100 maunds of paddy, they said.
After the cultivation failure, they contacted seed marketing stores and agriculture officials and they suggested using antifungal pesticides like Trooper, Navico and Aditren.
Kamaruzzaman, area manager for 21 districts of Energypac Agro, said generally the disease is caused when the temperature falls to 20 degrees Celsius from 35 degrees in a day.
Expressing the same view, Tapan Kumar Majumdar, marketing officer of Metal Agro Limited, said only 150 kg seeds were supplied to Barisal district and the dealer informed him about spread of the disease in the crop.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments