Tika R Pradhan

Kathmandu, March 28:

Scientists at the National Agricultural Research Council (NARC) apprehend that yellow rust disease will affect over 20 per cent of this year’s wheat yield in the mid-hills this year. The mid-hills cover some 48 per cent of the total wheat cultivation area in Nepal. “We fear between 20 to 30 per cent less wheat production this year as yellow rust is increasingly affecting the most popular variety of wheat — RR21 — that was released 34 years ago,” senior plant pathologist at NARC’s Plant Pathology Division of NARC, Sarala Sharma said.

Sharma, who is studying the devastation wrought by yellow rust, said it has also affected the Nepal 297 variety of wheat that was released 19 years ago. She added that the northeastern parts of the valley including Ramkot, Jeetpur Phedi, Nagarkot, Sundarijal have been badly affected. The yellow rust has hit farmers of hilly districts like Rasuwa, Kavre and Nuwakot and others pretty hard.

“Due to desctruction caused by the yellow rust, farmers of Jeetpur Phedi were forced to cut the young wheat stalks,” said Sharma, who visits various parts of the valley to study the impact of yellow rust. The Division recently held an interaction with 42 farmers of the three districts of the valley in this regard. NARC has also launched a Participatory Variety Selection (PVS) programme, at Goldhunga of Kathmandu district, Lamatar of Lalitpur and Katunje of Bhaktapur to help farmers replace the affected variety with the NARC-distributed yellow rust resistant variety BL 1473. “Around 72 per cent of the farmers in these three places of the valley are now planting BL 1473 variety,” said Bhola Man Singh Basnet, agronomist and spokesperson for NARC. “Another resistant variety, WK 1204, is in the pipeline to replace the RR21 and Nepal 297,” said Basnet. Sharma, however, pointed out that even the BL 1473 variety is also not totally resistant to the yellow rust. “Though the Pasang Lhamu variety of the wheat can resist the rust, it is not popular among the farmers,” she said, adding that the farmers should switch to different varieties at times in order to avoid disease in crops. “Leaf rust is also affecting wheat cultivation in the Terai region, but the impact is still marginal,” said senior scientist Tej Kumar Lama.

The yellow rust has been affecting wheat cultivation for the last two years. The outbreak has recurred after 20 years. According to Sharma, it was 7 years ago that the Annapurna-1 and 4 varieties were devastated at Baglung and Parbat. The rust destroyed the YR9 genes of the wheat. She demanded that the authorities provide sufficient amount of seed to replace the affected ones, claiming that farmers have been complaining that they are not getting the recommended varieties. Last year, Nepal saw the largest volume of wheat production. According to Basnet, in the last four decades the wheat-cropping area has increased six-fold while production has gone up by 13 per cent. In the year 2003/2004, wheat was cultivated in some 665,000 hectares of land. The total yield was 1,387,000 metric tonnes of wheat, productivity being 2.1 tonnes per hectare.