May 11, 2003	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 8, 1424

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HARIPUR, May 10: Fungous disease has played havoc with the garlic crop, reducing its yield considerably and forcing harvesters to reap it prematurely in many of Haripur villages, farmers said.

Changi Bandi, Mohri, Khoon-de-Bandi, Sera-i-Saleh, Shah Maqsood, Thanda Choha and Maira Toot are the worst hit areas, where farmers complained they had reaped a below-than-normal harvest.

These upper villages of district Haripur, situated alongside the river Dor, are famous for growing garlic, cauliflower, arvi and other seasonal vegetables.

On a visit to the disease-hit areas, it was found that the plants’ stalks had got rotten, and its decaying effects were visible on the surface of bulbs, noted to be either short-sized or dead.

The farmers, busy collecting the crop hurriedly for fear of its destruction, said they had experienced this crop decay for the first time in their life.

They said they had contacted the agriculture staff but they had nothing to save the crop. They only advised early harvesting.

“I used to collect 20 to 30 mounds of garlic from a piece of 20 Marlas, but the disease has now reduced its size to only 10 to 20 mounds,” Baidar, a local farmer, said.

The officials of the local agriculture office said the disease was named Blight. They held more rains and lack of crop-sowing mechanism responsible for the crop’s decay.

Agronomist Sadiq Shah said the farmers did not sow their garlic crop in a way that allowed the rain-water to flow out of farms. This accumulation of water around the crop caused the fungous disease. He said more destruction would have resulted had the rains fallen at an early stage of sowing.