Farmers Meet cum Rice IPM Awareness Programme organized in Balasore district of Odisha

Farmers Meet cum Rice IPM Awareness Programme organized in Balasore district of Odisha

ICAR-National Rice Research Institute (NRRI), Cuttack organised one-day Pre-kharif Farmers Meet cum Rice IPM Awareness Programme on 20th July 2018 in Panchayat Office premises of Vellora under Basta Block of Balasore district. The event was organized under the ICAR-NRRI and NCIPM Collaborative Project “Validation and Promotion of IPM in Rice based Cropping System. At the outset Dr. S D Mohapatra, Principal Scientist (Entomology) and Principal Investigator of the project welcomed all the dignitaries, farmers and informed the objective in organizing such meet. He also emphasized the need of proper identification of insect pests and diseases in rice for their effective management. Besides, he also throws some light on management of rice insect pests using low cost techniques like use of pheromone traps, trichocard, putting the straw bundle in bamboo peg for conservation of spiders in rice field etc. Since, in vegetative stage of rice the activities of natural predators and parasitoids are more, insect pests can be effectively managed even upto 40 – 45 days by adopting above pest management practices. The use and benefits of riceXpert app developed by ICAR-NRRI, Cuttack was also demonstrated the farmers.

Dr. Sunil Mohaptra, Senior Scientist and OIC of Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Balasore briefed about the on-going activities of the Centre and how the farmers, rural women, unemployed youth can get the benefits from KVK.  Dr. Srikanta Lenka, Senior Scientist (Plant Pathology) from ICAR-NRRI, Cuttack, discussed about the major diseases such as Sheath blight, Bacterial blight, blast, false smut etc in rice and their effective management techniques. Mr. Bhabani Shankar Satapathy, Scientist (Agronomy) from the institute, provided useful information about the methods to manage the weeds in rice in different ecosystems by spraying appropriate herbicides and Ms. Golive Prasanthi, Scientist (Entomology) appealed the farmers to adopt various safety measures during the spray of pesticides in crop fields. Mrs. Anamika Das Mohapatra, Sarpanch, Santoshpur Gram Panchayat, Mrs. Durgarani Jena, Sarpanch of Vellora Gram Panchayat were also present in the meeting and encouraged the farmers to adopt the scientific methods of rice pest management. The meeting was ended by vote of thanks proposed by Ms. Prajna Acharya, Field Assistant of the Project.