RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As farm­ers across the re­gion grap­ple with dev­as­tat­ing crop loss­es and floods, renowned agron­o­mist Akanath Singh has stepped for­ward to pro­vide guid­ance on sal­vaging dis­eased crops dur­ing the rainy sea­son.

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day, Singh high­light­ed the im­por­tance of us­ing spe­cif­ic fungi­cides tai­lored to com­bat the par­tic­u­lar dis­eases that af­flict cer­tain crops.

"If you are plant­i­ng pep­pers and toma­toes, you must brace for Phy­toph­tho­ra, Ral­sto­nia, Fusar­i­um, and Xan­thomonas. If you are plant­i­ng cab­bage, cau­li­flower, and broc­coli, you must brace for Pec­to­bac­teri­um. If you are plant­i­ng let­tuce and kale, you must brace for Cer­cospo­ra, Sep­to­ria, and Xan­thomonas," ex­plained Singh, em­pha­siz­ing the need for farm­ers to be aware of the spe­cif­ic chal­lenges they may face.

Singh said many of these crop dis­eases tend to oc­cur dur­ing the rainy sea­son, which typ­i­cal­ly spans from June to De­cem­ber. To as­sist farm­ers in com­bat­ing these dis­eases, he said farm­ers must em­ploy a com­bi­na­tion of con­tact and sys­temic fungi­cides to achieve greater dis­ease con­trol at dif­fer­ent tar­get sites in­side and out­side the plant sys­tem.

"To­day's dis­eases are very ag­gres­sive, vir­u­lent, and path­o­gen­ic, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the rainy sea­son, as these are the con­di­tions con­ducive to the spread and pro­lif­er­a­tion of crop dis­eases, char­ac­ter­ized by wet, wa­ter­logged, and sat­u­rat­ed soil con­di­tions," Singh warned.

He al­so sug­gest­ed the use of or­gan­ic bio-stim­u­lants and fungi­cides to en­hance plant im­mu­ni­ty and re­sis­tance, ef­fec­tive­ly re­pair­ing and restor­ing dis­eased plant tis­sues while com­bat­ing the dis­eases.

Stress­ing the im­por­tance of ro­tat­ing fungi­cides to pre­vent the de­vel­op­ment of re­sis­tance to dis­eases, Singh said:

"By ro­tat­ing fungi­cides, we tar­get spe­cif­ic meta­bol­ic process­es with­in the pathogen, such as in­hi­bi­tion of lipid syn­the­sis, pro­tein syn­the­sis, res­pi­ra­tion etc.”

He ex­plained: "By di­ver­si­fy­ing the types of fungi­cides used, farm­ers can min­i­mize the risk of re­sis­tance and im­prove dis­ease con­trol."

Singh al­so em­pha­sized the avail­abil­i­ty of safer and more en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly fungi­cides which con­tain Cin­na­mon Oil, Clove Oil, Neem Oil, as well as mi­cro­bial tech­nol­o­gy that uti­lizes fun­gi or bac­te­ria to com­bat spe­cif­ic dis­eases.

With ad­vance­ments in tech­nol­o­gy, Singh said or­gan­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly farm­ing prac­tices can be ef­fec­tive­ly im­ple­ment­ed, of­fer­ing sus­tain­able so­lu­tions to crop dis­ease man­age­ment.

Dur­ing the rainy sea­son, Singh ex­plained that many farm­ers face sig­nif­i­cant crop loss­es due to the high­er in­ci­dences of crop dis­eases, lead­ing to some aban­don­ing their fields al­to­geth­er.

To mit­i­gate such loss­es, he urged farm­ers to in­cor­po­rate both fungi­cides and bac­te­ri­cides in­to their ro­ta­tions, as some in­fec­tions may be bac­te­r­i­al rather than fun­gal in na­ture.

Singh al­so cau­tioned against plant­i­ng in flood-prone ar­eas and rec­om­mend­ed rais­ing the beds high­er on flat ter­rain to fa­cil­i­tate prop­er wa­ter drainage, as ex­ces­sive soil mois­ture can con­tribute to a high­er in­ci­dence of dis­eases.

He said as farm­ers grap­ple with the chal­lenges posed by floods and crop dis­eases, there is a ray of hope in sav­ing crops from the preva­lent dis­eases.

Singh said farm­ers can mit­i­gate loss­es, safe­guard their crops, and fos­ter a more sus­tain­able and re­silient agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor by equip­ping them­selves with the nec­es­sary knowl­edge and em­ploy­ing ap­pro­pri­ate dis­ease man­age­ment strate­gies.