Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Samba of Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences & Technology of Jammu(SKUAST) on Friday organized seed treatment campaign at village Sadwal of district Samba under the the aegis of Directorate of Extension, SKUAST-J and the supervision of Dr. Sanjay Khajuria, Chief scientist & Head, KVK Samba.
Chairman BDC Rajpura, Radhe Krishan was the chief guest on the occasion. As many as 70 farmers from Sadwal village participated in the programme.The program was started by Dr. Sanjay Khajuria, Chief Scientist & Head, KVK Samba. He welcomed all the farmers and highlighted the importance of seed treatment in agriculture crops particularly in Samba district.
He said the seed is the basic input of Agriculture so seed treatment is necessary to get a good product. “The core objective is to create awareness among the farmers regarding the importance of seed treatment,” he said. He further told the farmers that seed treatment plays an important role in protecting the seeds and seedlings from seed and soil borne diseases and insect pests affecting crop emergence and its growth.
He told the farmers that Krishi Vigyan Kendra Samba has decided to launch a campaign to make the farmers aware about the benefits of seed treatment and ensure that 100 per cent seeds of kharif crops were treated before sowing.Dr. Saurav Gupta, Scientist Entomology, discussed in detail about the importance of Seed treatment and told that seed treatment is one such major component of integrated pest management in crop protection.
He briefed that farmers can reduce half of the diseases in crops by simple seed treatments. This can be done both organically and by using pesticides, he said and added that seed treatment involves very little cost but provides safeguard against many diseases, which are of economic importance to the farmers.
"Seed treatment is necessary to protect seed and seedlings from pests and pathogens in early stages of germination and establishment," he said. He also informed that this campaign is expected to ensure that no seeds of major crops be sown without treatment by the farmers and gave a live demonstration of seed treatment to farmers.
He also stressed upon the need for adoption of IPM techniques to increase the agriculture production and doubling of farmer income. Dr. Amit Mahajan helped in seed treatment in paddy seed with baviston for the benefit of the farmers. In the end, vote of thanks was presented by Roshan Lal, Panch Sadwal.