Cluster Meeting of Plant Doctors held under CABI’s Plantwise Programme

Jammu : A one day Cluster meeting of Plant Doctors was held under CABI’s Plantwise Programme here at Kisan Kendra.Director Agriculture Production & Farmers Welfare, Jammu, K. K. Sharma chaired the meeting convened to evaluate the working of the Plant Doctors and discuss the activity Plan for 2022.Speaking on the occasion, K. K. Sharma 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 highlighted the role of 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.Dr. Vinod Pandit, Programme Leader, CABI, South Asia, while presenting the preview of PLANTWISE programme said that the Directorate of Agriculture Jammu and Centre for Agricultural Biosciences International (CABI) is working towards providing a fool proof pest management advisory system through Plant Clinics.

He underlined that E-Plant clinics operate under ICT system for quick and readily available information through “Plantwise Online Management System” (POMS), which provides a complete database and advisory for plant pests and diseases.Earlier, Joint Director Agriculture (Extension), Rajan 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, presented the achievements of 41 Plant Clinics established in all 10 districts of Jammu Division. It was apprised that direct advisory service on plant pests and diseases was recorded for more than 10000 farmers till date through trained plant Doctors of plant clinics.Plant Doctors, Dr. Sishupal Bamotra and Dr. Manmohan Sharma presented powerpoint presentations on management of Tuta absoluta, an invasive pest and how to recommend Chemical Treatments respectively.A number of 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 Programme Officer, Sanjay Dhar and Plant Doctors from five Districts of Jammu Division among others.