Having witnessed extensive damage to cotton crop due to whitefly attack last season, Punjab and Haryana are taking measures such as pushing for timely sowing of recommended crop varieties to safeguard this season's output.
Experts of agriculture departments of both states are also undertaking training programmes for growers at village levels to apprise them about steps needed to achieve higher output.
Last season, whitefly pest attack had caused widespread damage to Bt cotton varieties in Punjab and Haryana, which had witnessed dip of about 40 per cent in output.
In Punjab, 1.36 lakh hectares out of total 4.50 lakh hectares of cotton acreage was damaged by whitefly attack while in Haryana, out of 5.83 lakh hectares, 3.06 lakh hectares were affected.
"We are educating cotton growers in order to prevent attack of any pest on cotton crop," Deputy Director, Punjab Agriculture Department, Sukhdev Singh Sidhu said today.
The department is asking growers to sow cotton crop timely as impact of whitefly attack was most visible on late-sown crop last year. "We want growers to complete sowing by May 15," he told PTI.
Sowing gets delayed in some areas because of late harvesting of wheat crop.
Punjab, which will see assembly polls next year, has also hired 500 trained youths for educating growers through training camps to protect their crop from any disease, including whitefly attack.
"These youths will be deployed in cotton belt areas and they will immediately pass on any information about attack of any pest on crop to the department for taking urgent steps," he said. "50 field supervisors who are BSc (Agriculture) will also be hired to supervise the 500 youths."
Haryana will educate growers in a campaign starting from April 14 in cotton growing areas.
"We will inform farmers about weed management, recommend sowing of approved varieties of Bt cotton and seed treatment," said Babu Lal, Deputy Director (Sirsa), Haryana Agriculture Department.
"We are asking farmers for weed eradication as it is necessary because they play host to whitefly," said Sidhu.
Cotton industry has arranged for a vehicle which will travel in villages in Punjab to publicise steps to save the crop from whitefly, said former president of North India Cotton Association, Mahesh Sharda.
To deal with spurious pesticides, Punjab has taken
adequate steps to check their sale, officials said.
Last year, opposition Congress had attacked the SAD-BJP government for the alleged supply of "spurious" pesticides to growers whose crops were damaged by the pest attack.
Experts this season will also suggest farmers to refrain from indiscriminate use of synthetic pyrethroids and all kinds of insecticide as it could aggravate resurgence of whitefly.
Last year, experts had blamed hot and humid weather for huge build-up of whitefly and use of "cocktail of insecticides" by some cotton growers, which led to killing of "friendly insects" to keep a check on whitefly.
Punjab and Haryana have approved 38 and 34 Bt cotton varieties respectively for sowing in the current season.
However, experts pointed out that area under 'desi' cotton will jump considerably in both states as domestic variety is resistant to whitefly attack.
"Area under desi cotton in Haryana is expected to go up to 10 per cent from 2 per cent of total acreage," said Babu Lal.
Punjab and Haryana have set a cotton sowing target of 5 lakh hectares and 6.20 lakh hectares in Kharif season, respectively.
