MULTAN, Aug 11: The provincial agriculture department’s experts are allegedly trying to sweep the pernicious Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCV) under the carpet by showing ‘indifference’ towards its intensity this year.

The weekly meeting of the Cotton Crop Management Group was held under the chair of provincial agriculture minister Khursheed Zaman Qureshi at the central cotton research institute, on the old Shujaabad Road, on Saturday.

Sources told Dawn that everything related to the cotton crop, from availability of irrigation water to pesticides, was on the agenda. However, they said the menace of the CLCV was the only issue missing.

At the previous meeting of the CCMG at the research institute on Aug 3 last, the CLCV was the item No 7 on the agenda. Sources in the CCMG said this year even the minister, the agriculture secretary and other officials avoided reviewing the issue overtly.

They said the agriculture department’s top brass heard ‘in-camera’ the presentation of Punjab cotton Director Dr Noorul Islam on the virus and later on informed the remaining members that they would brief them on the CLCV front in the next meeting. This year, not only the cotton acreage target in the Punjab remained unaccomplished but the resurgence of the CLCV had also threatened shortfall in the overall production of cotton in the province which shared 80 per cent of total cotton production of the country. Growers complained that even the CLCV-resistant varieties could not escape the virus attack this year.

The CCMG meeting expressed satisfaction over the availability of the required quantity of irrigation water in the cotton growing areas of the province. However, discussion on the pesticides was reportedly held ‘in-camera’ which only a few officials were allowed to attend.

It was observed in the meeting that a fodder grass called ‘Jantar’ had caused proliferation of armyworm in the cotton fields. Therefore, it was decided to give a deadline to the growers to weed out the grass from the cotton fields before Aug 15.

Early arrival of phutti (seed cotton) from Sindh to the Punjab ginneries was termed the root cause of spreading pink bollworm in the Punjab. To check this, it was suggested that the ginneries that transacted cotton from Sindh should use month traps (sex-pheromones).

During the meeting, some 10 minutes were allocated to an open discussion with the district and tehsil-level officials of the agriculture department to know what type of difficulties they had been facing while working under the district governments.

The officials came out with many grievances. They said they had been working without clear understanding of their jurisdictions, especially regarding the regulations of pesticides/fertilizers’ quality and standards.

At the conclusion of the meeting, provincial agriculture secretary Junaid Iqbal was scheduled to hold a meeting on mango and issues related to pre and post-harvest handling.

But, the secretary reportedly excused to do the same, claiming he had to meet with Multan DIG police to discuss with him the law and order situation on the Punjab Seed Corporation’s Peerowal farms in Khanewal district.

Finally, agriculture (extension) Director General Chaudhry Abdul Ghaffar held a 10-minute meeting on mango and issues related to it.