October 07, 2007	Sunday	Ramazan 24, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Oct 6: The Bacterial Leaf Blight has attacked the rice crop in Punjab soon after reduced temperatures helped farmers control the deadly leaf-folder disease in the rice belt of Sindh, sources told Dawn.

“The blight has stared playing havoc with the rice crop in Lahore, Gujranwala, Sialkot and adjacent areas over the last few weeks,” a well-placed source in the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) told Dawn.

A Minfal official said the rampant use of unregistered and substandard imported seed was the main reason behind the emergence of the disease on an apparently healthy crop in Punjab.

It is feared that the bacterial attack would go a long way in damaging the overall export of rice this season as most of the affected crop is of exportable quality. It will have a greater impact on the overall production of rice, as well.

“Super Basmati rice is under attack in Punjab compared to Irri-6 damaged by leaf-folder in Sindh,” the official said.

While, the fall of mercury to 30-35 degree centigrade in September helped in controlling leaf-folder in Sindh, the temperature around 30 degrees in Punjab is providing favourable conditions for the growth of the bacterial disease.

The sources said Minfal has taken strong exception to the failure of the Seed Certification and Plant Quarantine Department to stop the import of substandard and bacteria-infected seed through seaports and airports.

They said the provincial food department’s extension department was almost non-existent as far as the fieldwork and data collection about various diseases were concerned.

“Same is the situation in Sindh, the NWFP and Balochistan, where the extension departments are just as stagnant as rainwater in pothole,” a top Minfal official told Dawn.

He said the federal food ministry had also sought information from the provinces regarding the status and severity of the attack.

The symptoms of the Bacterial Leaf Blight are the appearance of water-soaked to yellowish stripes on leaf blades or starting at leaf tips then later increases in length and width with a wavy margin.

There also appears bacterial ooze that looks like a milky or opaque dewdrop on a young lesion early in the morning. Lesions turn yellow to white as the disease advances. Severely infected leaves tend to dry quickly.

Warm temperature (25-30 degrees), high humidity, rain and deepwater favour the disease. Wetland areas also encourage the presence of the disease. Severe winds, which cause wounds and over fertilisation are suitable factors for the development of the disease.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, yield loss due to this disease corresponds to the plant growth stages at which the rice plants are infected. The earlier the disease occurs, the higher the yield loss.

Bacterial blight is reported to have reduced Asia’s annual rice production by as much as 60 per cent. For example, in Japan, rice crops on about 300,000 to 400,000 hectares were affected by the disease in recent years. The yield losses between 20 and 50 per cent were reported in severely infected fields. In Indonesia, losses were higher than those reported in Japan. In India, crops on millions of hectares were severely infected, causing yield losses from 6 per cent to 60 per cent.

“The next two weeks are very important for our rice crop. This bacterial disease needs to be immediately controlled,” the Minfal official said.

According to media reports 13 million acres of land in paddy belt of north Sindh including Dadu, Kambar-Shahdadkot, Larkana, Shikarpur, Jacobabad and Kashmore districts was attacked by leaf-folder disease.

Experts had feared that some 30 per cent of crop might be affected, causing colossal losses not only to the growers, but also to the national exchequer. Soon after the damages caused by the recent floods, Minfal had estimated more than 200,000 tonnes reduction in rice productivity. The ministry, in collaboration with the provincial food departments, had conducted an initial survey which had revealed severe damages to more than 271,000 acres of rice paddies only in Sindh.

Initial estimates suggested that about 20-25 per cent of the crop in Sindh had been damaged by floods. The damage in Balochistan was substantial, as well.

After the floods, Minfal was of the view that it was impossible to achieve this year’s rice production target of 5.7million tonnes.

In value term, the recent floods and rains had estimated to have damaged crops worth $230-250 million in Sindh and Balochistan. Cotton was the other major crop damaged by the floods.