Alarming mango pest case

MULTAN, April 28: A new problem of pest integration from field crops to horticulture domain has been observed in the mango growing belt of south Punjab, says Mango Growers Association President Zahid Husain Gardezi. In a press release issued here on Thursday, he said American Bollworm, one of the deadly threats to cotton, had unexpectedly been found in a mango orchard near Kabirwala tehsil. "Accidental discovery of a key pest of cotton crop in mango orchards is a matter of deep concern for the mango growers who are already combating fatal maladies of Mango Sudden Death and other pests and diseases," he said. He said initially this pest was noticed on a single mango tree in 2007 which was reported by the association to the Research and Extension Services of the agriculture departments but this pest did not pose any formidable threat to the mango crop during the following years. "This year was absolutely a different year. The weather conditions in the mango growing region and even in the entire country was an outstretched winter spell extending till the third week of March when the temperatures were depressingly low and the flowering on mangoes delayed," he said. Mr Gardezi said the presence of American bollworms in the bunches of malformed inflorescence and their presence on the pinhead and pea sized fruit set has become a matter of deep concern for the growers. "We have been advised to spray higher intensity of contact pesticides normally used on cotton crop to combat this phenomenon" he said. He said it`s suggested that the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council Islamabad, the Punjab Agriculture Research Board Lahore, the Ayub Agricultural Research Institute Faisalabad and the Mango Research Station Shujaabad must undertake immediate further investigation in this regard.