The Hindu : Karnataka News : Scientists find way to combat sugarcane pest

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 03, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Scientists find way to combat sugarcane pest

By Our Special Correspondent

HUBLI, OCT. 2. Research scientists at the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, have found a way to combat the pest, woolly aphid, which has affected sugarcane crop in Karnataka.

This was stated here on Friday by S.A. Patil, Vice-Chancellor of the university.

The remedy for the problem was in bio-control measures and unleashing predator insects that would devour the pest, he said.

According to Dr. Patil, the problem was spreading fast in the sugarcane growing areas of north Karnataka such as Belgaum, Bagalkot, Bidar, and Bijapur, and the loss to farmers was around Rs. 4,000 an acre.

When the pest attack was brought to the notice of the university, 37 scientists were deputed to tackle the problem. The predator used to control the pest was "dipha."

Suggestions

The university had also made suggestions to tackle the problem in Old Mysore area where farmers had found that use of chemicals had failed to control the menace.

The university had appealed to sugarcane growers in the Old Mysore region not to use chemicals against the pests and that it had arranged to send special teams from here to demonstrate how to check the pest, he said.

Pest-resistant varieties

Dr. Patil said that one of the scientists had found three sugarcane varieties in the field remaining free of the pest.

The scientists were studying the three pest-resistant varieties and planned to propagate them among farmers, he said.

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