Coconut growers get predator packs to contain whitefly damage
The Coconut Cultivation Board said that 300,000 packets containing the predator Encarcis Guadeloupae introduced by the Agriculture Department to control the spread of whitefly in coconut and king coconut plantations have been distributed this year.
The damage caused by the whitefly to the coconut plantation is currently being reported from several areas and due to the rain in the Western Province and some other areas, some reduction of this damage has been reported.
The whitefly is more attracted to the yellow colour, so it causes more damage to the king coconut plants than to coconut plantations. So far, this treatment has been given to 1,051,323 coconut and king coconut trees that were damaged by the whitefly.
Coconut yield is greatly affected by whitefly damage. Due to this, there has been a big decrease in coconut yield last year. In order to overcome this situation, the Coconut Cultivation Board has conducted 700 liquid spray machines for spraying coconut oil extract and 3,046 awareness programmes for coconut growers.
It is planned to give two million coconut saplings to the farmers in 2024 and so far 800,000 coconut saplings have been distributed.
Also, 11,401 king coconut saplings have been distributed to growers. The Coconut Cultivation Board said that 23,233 king coconut seeds have been planted in nurseries to obtain saplings.
Agriculture and Plantation Industry Minister Mahinda Amaraweera instructed Coconut Cultivation Board officials to give the introduced predator to the farmers to protect the coconut plantation from the whitefly and to implement further programmes to inform the coconut growers about the correct use of coconut cultivation.
A discussion was held at the Agriculture and Plantation Industries Ministry about the projects to be implemented for the promotion of coconut cultivation this year. These facts were revealed there.
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