New plant disease hit some Ghazni fruit trees

GHAZNI CITY (Pajhwok): Farmers in southern Ghaznir province have complained that their apple, apricot, pears and some other fruit trees incurred new disease due to which their yield had been affected.

They said the nature of disease was that trees leaves produce oil and then mosquitoes and flies gather around them and later the fruit finds warms. Health experts dubbed this plant disease as Shafta.

Mohammad Khan 70, the resident of Jalalzo locality in Ghazni City is concerned about some of his fruit trees affected by the Shafta infection because most of his trees fell ill this season.

He said: “Until now he did not see this type of infection and it is the first time that his orchard is attacked by this infection.”

Moahmmad Ismael, another orchard owner, told Pajhwok Afghan News last year their orchard was hit by hails, floods and heavy rainfall and this year the new type of infection his their orchards.

The trees are attacked by mosquitos, flies and the fruits get warms.

He demanded welfare organisations and government should support farmers with awareness programs and agriculture medicines.

Agriculture experts said the new infection is viral and if not prevented it could transmit the virus form one tree to another every year.

Eng. Mohammad Asif, who graduated from Ghazni Agriculture University, said the new plant infection is viral, it attack fruit trees, gets its energy and weaken the tree.

He said: “Farmers in Ghazni got no awareness regarding plant diseases control, medicine spray and other items therefore farmers are faced with some problems.”

Meanwhile agriculture officials in Ghazni also acknowledged the new infection affected most fruit trees and pledged support to farmers in this regard.

Mohammad Zakria Hotak, a senior official of the Agriculture Department, said: “This infection inflicted losses on farmer, so far 50 litres of spray had been distributed to farmers, each litre spray is enough for 1,200 trees.”

He said the Agriculture Department is committed to distribute more spray in the future.

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