Winter has already set in. Low temperatures, dense fog, drizzle and cloudy weather at this time are harmful for Boro seedbeds, potato, tomato, mustard, bean, betel leaf, mango, litchi, jujube (kul) and other crops. Farmers have been advised to take some steps to protect their crops.

Dense fog, low temperatures and cold waves can cause cold injury in Boro seedbeds, with seedlings turning yellow and dying, damping-off and kresek disease. In that case:

• Flood the seedbed with irrigation every evening and drain the water out in the morning.
• In foggy weather, cover the seedbed with clear polythene day and night, and remove it when the sun comes out.
• In the morning, drag a rope over the seedlings to shake off the dew; this protects them from cold injury.
• Applying 400 grams of gypsum, 280 grams of urea and 2 kg of ash per decimal of seedbed helps.
• For damping-off and seedling death, spray the seedbed with mancozeb at 2 grams per litre of water.

Dense fog during a cold wave can bring late blight and early blight to potato and tomato fields. To protect these crops:

• Before blight appears, after earthing up, spray a contact fungicide as a preventive, such as Dithane M-45, Indofil M-45, Secure or Melody Duo, at 2 grams per litre of water every 7 days.
• Where blight has already appeared, spray Ridomil Gold (2.5 g/litre), Cabrio Top (3 g/litre), Newben (2 g/litre), Acrobat AZ (4 g/litre), Cormil (2 g/litre) or Nazh (2 g/litre) every 7 days, wetting both the upper and lower sides of the leaves well.
• If blight appears in a potato field, stop top-dressing urea and irrigating.
• To control aphids and whitefly, Tundra or Acetaf at 1 g/litre of water, Volium Flexi at 5 g/10 litres of water, or any malathion-type insecticide at the approved dose may be sprayed.

• Earth up the soil around the base of maize plants.
• Depending on the agro-ecological zone and variety, apply the first split of urea and MoP fertiliser 25-30 days after germination and the second split 40-45 days after.
• If companion or mixed crops are grown with maize, give them the care they need.
• Fall armyworm may attack maize, so monitor and scout regularly and take control measures when needed. Use pheromone traps (5 per acre) for monitoring.

Cloudy weather can bring aphid attacks on mustard fields and bean plants. If they appear, apply bishkatali juice or neem or tobacco leaf juice as a bio-pesticide. If the attack is severe, spray a malathion 57 EC-type insecticide at 2 millilitres per litre of water.

Dense fog, low temperatures and cold waves can cause betel leaves to drop or turn yellow. In this situation:

• Repair the fences and roofing of the betel vine enclosure (baroj) and make them dense, so fog and wind cannot get in. The fence on the north side in particular should be well made.
• Clear out infected dead betel plants, vines and leaves carefully, and bury or burn them.
• Do not apply mustard oil cake and nitrogen fertiliser directly. Soak the oil cake, let it rot for 7-8 days, then dry it before applying.
• To control vine and leaf rot, spray Melody Duo (2 grams per litre of water), Secure (1 g/litre of water) or Gitalux 25 WP at the approved dose on the affected vines and leaves every 10 days, wetting them well.

Dense fog may damage the blossoms of mango, litchi and jujube trees. To control hoppers at this time, spray the whole tree with a cypermethrin-type insecticide at 1 millilitre per litre. To prevent anthracnose, spray a carbendazim or propiconazole-type fungicide at the approved rate.

For any farming problem, farmers can also get expert advice from the upazila agriculture office, or by calling the Krishi Call Centre on 16123 or the Krishak Bandhu service on 3331.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.