The Punjab Agriculture Department (PAD) has advised the vegetable growers using tunnel technology for sowing several vegetables to use healthy and disease free seed in order to avoid viruses spreading different diseases. It also advised the growers to timely eradicate the weeds and spray pesticides in consultation with the field experts of the agriculture department having new chemistry for timely checking enemy pests.
A spokesman of the department said on Friday that early sowing of cucumber, bitter gourd, pumpkin, melon, water melon and various others has already started. These vegetables face different diseases because of increase in the temperature inside the tunnel or increase in moisture. The experts of the department suggested that these vegetables should be sown after applying different anti-fungus poison to seeds.