Cotton on 50K acres damaged in Haryana

Deepender Deswal
Tribune News Service
Hisar, August 13

Cotton crop on nearly 50,000 acres in the state has been damaged due to waterlogging after the recent rains. Reports from farmers and officials indicate that the crop on nearly 10,000 acres has completely perished.

The crop is totally destroyed in the flooded areas of Hisar, Bhiwani and Jind districts, known as the cotton belt of Haryana. The rainwater has been standing in the fields for the last couple of weeks.

Whitefly threat too

There is more bad news for cotton farmers as a Haryana Agricultural University team observed aphid and whitefly infestation during first week of August in cotton and other crops in the region.

Naresh Kumar, sarpanch of Bhatol Jatan village, said: “After the cotton crop perished, farmers sowed paddy but that too got damaged. Besides cotton, sugarcane, bajra, guar, and paddy have been destroyed on 2,400 acres under cultivation in the village. Though the district administration has been trying to drain out water by installing pumps, fields are still covered by 2 feet of water,” he said.

Similarly, heavy rains and waterlogging have destroyed kharif crops in some other parts of the state.

In Bhiwani, rainwater has affected crops in Mundhal and Bawani Khera villages. Villages in the Julana region of Jind district too are in trouble because of their waterlogged cotton fields.

An official said cotton crop on 5,000 to 6,000 acres had got destroyed in Hisar district, but the damage too paddy crop was not severe.