Nghe An: Nearly 23,000 hectares of rice infected with leaf blight and brown spot disease

(Baonghean.vn) -Currently in Nghe An, nearly 23,000 hectares of rice are infected with leaf blight and brown spot disease, and the infected rice area continues to increase rapidly.

Currently, over 95 thousand hectares of Nghe An's Summer-Autumn rice are in the tillering - heading - flowering - ripening stages. Appearing since the beginning of July, bacterial leaf blight is currently causing serious damage over a large area and rapidly increasing the infected area. A week ago, the whole province had only 1,662 hectares of rice affected by leaf blight, but by August 9, that number had increased to over 2,682 hectares, of which 942.3 hectares were severely infected. The infected area is concentrated in Dien Chau, Nghi Loc, Yen Thanh, and Hung Nguyen districts with a high disease rate of 10-20%, with 60-100% of leaves damaged in some areas.

Checking the situation of leaf blight disease on summer-autumn rice in Dien Chau district. Photo: Phu Huong

Head of the Department of Agriculture of Nghi Loc district, Mr. Nguyen Van Quang said: 1/3 of the summer-autumn rice area has entered the flowering stage, the rest is preparing to flower. The leaf blight disease has caused strong damage since storm No. 2 and spread at a fairly fast rate, due to the adverse effects of the weather combined with the subjective thinking and lack of prevention of the people...

Currently, the entire Nghi Loc district has over 500 hectares infected with the disease, of which about 50 hectares are severely infected and have dried up the tops of the leaves, concentrated in semi-mountainous communes such as Nghi Hung, Nghi Kieu, Nghi My... The district is focusing on propaganda and instructing farmers to spray the disease on areas of rice that have not yet bloomed and are lightly infected to avoid spreading.

In addition, up to this point, the brown spot disease has also occurred and damaged rice on a large scale. The whole province currently has 20,218.5 hectares of rice infected, of which over 3,311 hectares are severely infected. The disease rate is high at 20-30%, locally up to 50-70% of plants are infected.

According to Mr. Nguyen Tien Duc - Head of the provincial Department of Crop Production and Plant Protection, the professional sector has made specific recommendations for each type of disease. For leaf blight and bacterial stripe disease, do not apply nitrogen fertilizer to areas at high risk of infection.

Farmers are advised to take early prevention measures when the disease first appears or when bacterial droplets are detected (disease lesions have not yet clearly formed) with one of the following drugs containing active ingredients: Oxolinic acid (Starner 20WP, ...); Bronopol (Xantoxin 40WP, Totan 200WP, ...); Bismerthiazol (Xanthomix 20WP, ...); Ningnamycin (Bonny 4SL, Kozuma 5WP...); Kasugamycin (Kasumin 2SL, ...); ... spray according to the recommended amount and spray again every 5-7 days if the disease continues to appear and develop.

In particular, absolutely do not add nitrogen fertilizer, do not use growth stimulants or foliar fertilizers on rice fields that are infected.

A pesticide dealer advises farmers on the type of pesticide to use and how to spray it. Photo: Phu Huong

For sheath blight, rice areas infected with a rate of 5-10% or more need to be instructed to keep enough water in the fields and use one of the drugs with active ingredients such as Validamycin (Jinggang meizu 5-10WP, Validacin 3-5L, Vida 5WP...); Hexaconazole (Anvil 5SC, ...); ... mixed according to the instructions and sprayed evenly on the stem and base of the rice. For seriously infected fields, spray twice, the second time 5-7 days after the first time to ensure effective control.

Phu Huong