By Our Correspondent
Inaruwa, Sept 19 : The outbreak of paddy diseases has caused damage to paddy crops in several wards in Gadhi Rural Municipality in Sunsari district.
Diseases, such as stem borer and sheath blight, have been noticed in the paddy crops.
Farmers are worried after the stem borer insect started to damage the paddy by eating the shoot of the paddy plant.
The worst affected are Gadhi Rural Municipality-2, Warbani, Chhitaha of wards 3 and 4, as well as Satairjhor of Ward No. 6.
According to farmer Surendra Mehta, the stem borer has damaged the bud of paddy planted in one bigha and 10 katthas of land.
"Less than two months after rice was planted, the problem of stem borer has appeared," he said, "The rice plants are wilting and nearing death. And plants death means rice is not produced."
He informed the agricultural technician about the problem.
Another farmer Niraj Yadav informed that a team of the Ministry of Industry, Agriculture and Cooperatives of Koshi Province, Prime Minister Agriculture Modernisation Project, Agricultural Knowledge Centre and agricultural technicians of the rural municipalities visited the pest-affected farms.
According to Jimmy Chaudhary, a technician of the agriculture branch of Gadhi Rural Municipality, since the problem in its first stage, farmers have been advised to irrigate the rice plants and apply pesticides to address the problem before it advances into higher stages.
He attributed the outbreak to the lack of water needed for the paddy.
Nilkamal Singh, chief of the Agriculture Knowledge Centre, said that the diseases have been seen in some wards of the Inaruwa Municipality and the Gadhi Rural Municipality.
Singh said that farmers have been advised to apply pesticides to the affected paddy crops as needed.
According to Chaudhary, since the borer insect is an enemy, advice is being given for its management.
He informed that the farmers were worried that the problem was seen during paddy growing season.
In the district, paddy is cultivated in a total area of 55,000 hectares of land.
Farmer Bhubaneshwar Yadav said that the technicians and experts, who came to monitor and inspect the farmers’ fields, gave some suggestions, including spraying pesticides.