HYDERABAD, May 19: Agriculture Research director-general Haji Khan Keerio has urged agriculture-oriented organizations to provide soil and plant testing facilities to farmers to ensure balanced fertilization and increased output. He was speaking at the launch of zinc and boran fertilizers organized by the regional management of the Engro Chemical Pakistan at a hotel here on Thursday.

He said the firm was earning a lot of money from farmers and as such it should to protect economic rights of farmers and supplement government’s efforts in increasing agricultural production.

Mr Keerio said deficiency of zinc and boran had been identified in the soil of Sindh since long but unfortunately no genuine fertilizer company had fulfilled requirements of farmers.

He praised the Engro Chemical for introducing the nutrients which would benefit farmers and, thus, the national economy.

He observed that due to communication gap and unawareness, only one per cent of farmers in Pakistan were applying balanced fertilizers on sugarcane crop. Therefore, he said, a campaign to create awareness among farmers about balanced fertilization and application of the latest cultivation methodology was needed to be launched.

Mr Keerio advised farmers to get their soil and plants tested from laboratories available at each district headquarters before applying any fertilizer to meet deficiencies.

He said his organization was working hard to evolve high yield new verities and added that recently a wheat variety, TD-I, had been approved by the government which had the strength to yield 80 to 100 maunds per acre production. Another variety of wheat, SKD-I, was in the process of approval. In addition to this, he said, the newly-introduced sugarcane variety, THAT T-10, was yielding 950 to 1,000 per acre production which could be improved to get 1,500 maunds per acre.

He advised farmers to use approved seed varieties to get better produce.

Regional Engro Chemical manager Wajid Hussain Junejo said 16 nutrients were required for growing any crop and the Engro Chemical had been supplying three of them, nitrogen, phosphorus and potash.

He said research showed that the soil was highly deficient in zinc (85 per cent) and boran (60 per cent).