Jhapa. Due to the ‘neck blast’ disease in Shivasatakshi Municipality-2, the paddy has dried up in the plant before it is ripe. Rabin Bhattarai, chief of agriculture section of the municipality, said that the hardinath-1 variety of paddy plant cultivated by nine farmers of the ward on nine bighas of land has dried up.
The farmers have appealed to the local municipality after the paddy crop was destroyed due to the infection of the disease at the time of ripening. Shiva Kumari Mainali, a local, said, “The paddy planted in one bigha 15 kattha had dried up. ’
He also said that there is a problem in removing the dried paddy plant from the field. It was customary for farmers to plant winter paddy after the rainy season. However, mainali said that after the damage to the paddy in the rainy season, there is a concern about whether to plant another paddy or not. Farmers have invested heavily in fertilizers, seeds, irrigation and labour while planting paddy crop. Sushila Kafle, a farmer, said, “I had hired a tractor and a farmer to plough the field so that the paddy would be ripe.”
Agriculture Section Chief Bhattarai said that it is necessary to treat the seed paddy before sowing paddy in the bed as neck blast disease is transmitted through paddy seeds. He said that such problems can also arise when farmers plant seeds without treatment and use more nitrogen-rich fertilizers. Five years ago, a similar disease destroyed paddy, he said.
He said that the municipality is providing pesticides free of cost to the farmers to control the disease in the affected areas. He said that if chemical fertilizers are used only according to the recommendation of the technicians after soil testing, then the outbreak of such diseases will not be seen.
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