Growers examine their tobacco crop in Swabi. —Dawn

SWABI: The tobacco crop in the district was affected by a disease soon after the recent rain, said farmers and representatives of tobacco companies here on Monday.

They said that leaves of tobacco plants were attacked by the disease. The leaves were drying and reducing size slowly, causing complete destruction of the tobacco plants one after other, they said, adding that the disease engulfed the entire field.

The farmers said that they didn’t know what the name of the disease was but they locally called it ‘burning of the crop’ because they felt that the leaves of tobacco were burning.

The officials of the tobacco companies also showed ignorance about the name of the disease. However, one of them named the disease. “We call it leaf blight,” he said confidently.

He said that it was basically a fungus attack, which caused the leaf blight disease. It attacked the crop irrespective of its variety, he said. He added that mostly those growers, who did not follow tobacco crop production recommendations, suffered greater damage.

The disease attacked all the varieties of Virginia tobacco but locally known Swatay variety was badly affected by it.

During a visit to the fields, the affected farmers told this scribe that not a single representative of Pakistan Tobacco Board (PTB) or agriculture department had visited them.

“The PTB officials should not console us on this occasion of great financial loses but they should use their expertise to suggest pesticides for the disease,” they added.

“Majority of tobacco growers lack education and don’t know what steps should be taken to cure the crop and minimise financial loses,” said Liaquat Yousufzai, a leader of tobacco growers.

Shahroom Khan, a farmer of Bachai village, said that he had cultivated Virginia tobacco over 64-kanal land and usually ran three kilns in the tobacco curing season. “All the fields have been attacked by the disease but the irony is that the agriculture officers don’t know how it can be cured,” he said.

The growers said when they approached an official of agriculture department, he told them that he had received several telephone calls from a number of growers to seek his advice about the disease. Some growers also visited his office for seeking his advice but the officer said that he did not know what should be done, said the farmers.

Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2015

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