The Sindh Agriculture Department's experts on Monday advised the cotton growers to apply nitrogenous fertiliser and irrigation with immediate effect to the crop affected by stunting growth.
The Sindh Agriculture Department's spokesman said here that a six- member team of the agricultural experts had conducted a survey of cotton crop in Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Mirpurkhas and Sanghar districts, and found no serious problem except stunting growth and cotton leaf curl virus in some areas. There was no problem of reddening of leaves or wilting, the experts observed.
According to the Department's spokesman, some plant samples of the affected crop in Matiari, Shahdadpur and Sanghar were collected and sent to the laboratory for pathological analysis.
In some fields dwarf plants were observed because of drought and mismanagement, as the fields were weedy and no proper fertiliser was applied as per requirement.
The stunted growth was attributed to no deep ploughing since long, long irrigation intervals, early sowing and low fertiliser application.
In Sanghar district, some fields were affected by cotton leaf curl virus because of admixture seed of unproved varieties purchased from uncertified sources.
There was no serious problem of pest activity in the surveyed areas as pests were much below the economic injury level.
The growers should monitor their crop and if the pest reached economic injury level, it should be sprayed with pesticides under the advice of the agriculture experts and agriculture extension officers of the area, the spokesman advised.
According to the spokesman, the cotton was sown on 582,542 hectares up to June 30 against the last year's area -of 561,000 hectares, while the target had been fixed this year at 590,000 hectares.
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