Cluster Meet of Plant Doctors convened under CABI’s Plantwise Prog

Jammu : A one day Cluster meeting of Plant Doctors was convened on Wednesday under CABI’s Plantwise Programme here at Baba Jitto Kisan Kendra Jammu under the Chairmanship of Director of Agriculture Production & Farmers Welfare, Jammu, K. K. Sharma, with the intent of evaluating the working of the Plant Doctors and discussing the activity Plan for Rabi 2022-23.
Speaking on the occasion, K. K. Sharma highlighted the role Plant Clinics in mitigating the insect pests and disease problems of crops and further stressed on educating the farmers about use of recommended dose of pesticide at appropriate time. He impressed upon the Plant Doctors to regularly update knowledge regarding various aspects of the pest management including proper sampling, data collection, online validation, weather forecast based agro-advisory, analysis of data and recommendations. He further stressed on popularization of Bio control methods to maintain ecological balance.
Dr. Vinod Pandit, Programme Leader, CABI, South Asia, who was connected virtually elaborated that the objectives of Plant Wise Plus include switching over to climate-smart plant health practices, ensure supply of safer food and to develop systems for local production of plant protection products. He also informed that any information regarding BioPesticide products can be accessed at biopesticideportal.com.
Earlier, Joint Director Agriculture (Extension), Subash Chander Sharma, in his welcome address interacted with Plant Doctors about various aspects of the Plant pest/ disease management and discussed different bottlenecks in smooth running of E-Plant Clinics .
Arun Khajuria, I/C Plant Health Clinic Jammu, during technical session, underlined that working of e-Plant clinics has switched over to ICT system (under Digital India Programme) for quick and readily available information through “Plantwise Online Management System” (POMS) which provides complete database and advisory for plant pest and diseases
Pertinently 41 Plant Clinics are functioning in the 10 districts of Jammu Division. It was apprised that direct advisory service on plant pests and diseases was recorded for more than 12000 farmers till date through trained plant Doctors of plant clinics.
Plant Doctors, Dr. Sishupal Bamotra and Dr. Manmohan Sharma presented powerpoint presentations on monitoring and surveillance of invasive pests and how to recommend Chemical Treatments respectively.
Several activity sessions including interaction and feedback, Plant Doctor self assessment, problem diagnosis, live sample identification and presentation on future planning were conducted during the programme. The meeting was also attended by Agriculture Chemist, Aman Jyoti Sharma, Programme Officer, Sanjay Dhar and Plant Doctors from ten Districts of Jammu Division among others.