The Hindu : Karnataka News : Now, it is ‘Crinkle Virus’

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 31, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Now, it is ‘Crinkle Virus’

Black gram crop in 67,000 hectares is at the mercy of this new virus

Uncertainty appears to be a way of life for farmers. When the monsoon is good and farmers take up sowing in the hope of a good harvest, pests and plant diseases wait in the wings to take the smile away from the faces of the farmers.

Farmers in Gulbarga who have sown short duration cash crops of green and black grams have been hard hit as the black gram crop in 67,000 hectares is faced with a threat from a new type of wild virus which kills the crop.

As the name suggests, “Crinkle Virus” virtually crinkles the leafy portion of the crop and prevents the formation of the pods. Even where the pods do form, the process is delayed leading to steep fall in the yield and quality of the produce. Sources in the Agriculture Department told The Hindu here that the virus shows up only at a late stage when it becomes difficult for the farmer to take any remedial measure. The abnormal vegetative growth is the first symptom of th e virus attack and the farmer either should uproot the plant to prevent its spread to other plants or take up the spraying of pesticides to kill the aphids and mites that could carry the virus to other crops in the field. The virus is not soil-, air- or water-borne but comes through the seeds from the wild varieties of the black gram. It is difficult for farmers to differentiate between virus-affected seeds and normal ones.

The virus attack could get even more severe in the years to come if the wild varieties of black gram are not weeded out by the farmers. The farmers have also been advised to avoid the seeds from the infected plots at the time of sowing next year.

The extent of the loss suffered by the black gram farmers due to the virus attack on their crop would be known only after the harvesting of the crop next month.

T.V. Sivanandan in Gulbarga

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