Experts visit wheat fields in Meherpur

Experts from national and international research bodies have visited some wheat fields in Meherpur, affected by wheat blast for second year in a row.

Five hectares of land was affected by the wheat blast in the district's Sadar and Gangni upazilas, they observed and asked the agriculture extension workers to advise farmers to spray fungicides to contain the blast spread.

Executive Chairman of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) Dr Mohammad Jalal Uddin, Director General of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) Dr Abul Kalam Azad, Director of Wheat Research Centre (WRC) Dr Naresh Chandra Dev Barma along with the centre's Chief Scientific Officer Dr Paritosh Kumar Malakar and Dr Timothy J Krupnik, agronomist from the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), inspected the affected wheat fields on Monday.

The team of scientists and experts collected samples from the affected fields.

Meherpur was the worst affected district by the fungus last year where 8,000 out of 14,000 hectares of wheat fields was damaged.

As the government discouraged cultivation of wheat in some of the worst affected districts, farmers in Meherpur have reduced wheat acreage to less than 4,000 hectares this year.

Caused by a fungus -- Magnaporthe oryzae -- wheat blast is one of the most fearsome and intractable wheat diseases in recent decades. Mostly confined within the continent of South America since 1985, its attack on Bangladeshi wheat fields last season was the first case in Asia.

BARI DG Dr Abul Kalam Azad told The Daily Star that despite discouragement some farmers went for wheat and only a few of them experienced blast.

WRC Director Dr Naresh Chandra Dev Barma attributed the blast attack to heat stress because of some early plantation. He said during the field visit they have observed partial bleaching of the spikes and typical eye-shaped necrotic disease lesions with grey centres in the leaves of some wheat plants.