Mudasir Tariq
Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Mar 7: Even as horticulture has remained the backbone of Kashmir economy, with more than sixty percent of population dependent on it, wrong use of oil sprays, fertilizers and pesticides coupled by unregulated supply by market functionaries over the years is taking toll on the apple production in valley.
There has been a substantial increase in the use of pesticides and other chemicals in terms both of volume and value from last two decades. Many spurious oil sprays, fertilizers and pesticides are said to have created adverse effect on the production and life span of apple trees.
"While looking at the topography of Kashmir valley only crude oils like Hindustan Petroleum (HP) and Servo were recommended as (TSO) Tree Spray Oil, these were effective in controlling the sanjose scale disease of the apple trees. But then paraffin based white oils like Arbofine, Rallistar, ATSO, MAK etc were introduced that failed to control sanjose scale. These have led to a greater damage of apple orchards from the last ten years," said Nazir Ahmad Pandith, Village Agriculture Extension Officer.
Pandith attributed this to the lack of knowledge among the farmers and presence of strong marketing forces who sell the products without considering it's adverse effects.
"There are multinational corporations who sell these pesticides and oil sprays here. These white oils were recommended by Sher-I-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Kashmir (SKUAST-K). These were used here since 2000, but after the university felt it's adverse effects restrictions were impose on the sale, but still it is being sold through black marketing," he said.
Ironically in the apple-growing belt of the valley, chemicals are being used indiscriminately without considering scientific recommendations. The choice of chemicals/brand preferences are steered by traders and market functionaries.
The judicious application of these oil sprays and pesticides is largely unregulated, characterized by the existence of a network of pesticide companies, viz., multinationals (MNCs) and nationals (NCs), authorized distributors/dealers, unlicensed traders and rampant availability of sub-standard/spurious pesticides.
"Whatever a dealer recommends a farmer, he uses only those chemicals for his orchards. He hardly pays any heed what the professionals have advised him, this results in an unjustified use of oil sprays, pesticides and insecticides that ultimately creates adverse effects on the horticulture," said an official of Horticulture department.
While farmers formulate and apply pesticides as directed by these dealers, accordingly, the scientific pesticide spray schedule released by SKUAST-K in collaboration with line departments has depicted poor adoption in the field.
"Farmers use agro-chemicals indiscriminately without consideration of age of orchards, number of sprays, and compatibility of chemicals. It was observed that all the dormant spray oils are being sprayed at more than recommended levels and showed a technological gap of about 70 per cent. At farmers' level, fungicides and insecticides/acaricides were being applied 20 per cent and 48 per cent more than recommendations, respectively," said Wali Mohammad, filed researcher with the Horticulture department. |
