By Arpita Srivastava/NT
MAPUSA
The farmers of Bardez taluka are gearing up to witness a bumper harvest of paddy this year as around 95 per cent of the paddy crops cultivated across the taluka are in good condition expecting to give a optimum yield. Meanwhile 5 per cent of paddy fields are hit by rice caseworm transforming the affected fields white.
This year in Bardez taluka the paddy cultivation has got a boost as hectares of uncultivated lands have been brought under cultivation primarily due to the efforts of Zonal Agriculture office and their team.
Around 5,400 hectares of land is being brought under cultivation where farmers have taken up mostly paddy cultivation across Bardez.
With the rains subsiding gradually the paddy farmers are hoping to have a good yield. However, some farmers have expressed concern as the leaves of their paddy crop have become white in colour, and they fear that some kind of pest has hit.
The rice caseworm is a pest that cuts pieces of paddy leaf tips to make the leaf cases and lives inside feeding on the green lamina or tissue thereby turning the leaves into white color.
These pests are initially of rice size and later after feeding on the green lamina grow up to 2.5 mm.
Basically there are three reasons for these pests to hit on any paddy which include stagnation of water in the fields, excessive use of nitrogenous fertilizers/urea or dense plantation of paddy seedlings.
The affected areas in Bardez taluka are Saligao, Sangolda, Assagao, and Parra.
On Monday the Bardez zonal agriculture officer Anant Hoble along with his team visited all the cultivated paddy fields to check on the growth of the paddy. Hoble visited the stretch from Guirim, Sangolda, Parra, Saligao, Assagao, Siolim, Oxel, and Siolim Sodiem and inspected all the paddy crops including the rice caseworm affected paddy.
When contacted Hoble said, “This year we are expecting to have good harvest and if all goes well and we have rain on every alternate day, we will have better paddy harvest.”
When inquired as to how badly has the rice caseworms hit the paddy crops in Bardez, he said, “We have inspected the entire stretch of paddy cultivation area from Sangolda till Siolim Oxel and have noticed that few areas in Saligao, Assagao, Parra and Sangolda are affected by rice caseworm.”