CCRI team visits hailstorm affected areas in region

Nagpur: A three member team of comprising A D Huchche, principal scientist (Horticulture.), Ashok Kumar, technical officer V N Dhengre, visited the hailstorm affected citrus orchards of Nagpur and Amravati Districts on February 13th, 2018. The team submitted the report on Thursday.
The team first visited the Nagpur mandarin orchard of Nilesh Ridhokar at Ladegaon in Katol taluka. The orchard was having Mrig bahar fruits as well as huge flowering of Ambia bahar. About 60% of Mrig bahar fruits were dropped and damaged due to hailstorm and 50% of Ambia flowering were damaged. The bark of the main trunk and its branches were badly damaged and several wounds could be seen on the trunk.

The trunk, branches, twigs, leaves and fruits were severely injured leading to exposure of internal tissue for infection. The committee suggested to remove the dropped fruits, prune the damaged twigs followed by spraying of Carbendazim@1 gm/lit to all the plant parts to prevent the pathological losses. The sprouted buds of the budded seedlings very badly damaged as they were kept open in the nursery. about 70% of the seedlings were damaged by the hailstorm breaking the bud completely. It was suggested to spray Carbendazim@1 gm/lit for protection air bone fungi.

Later the team visited Nagpur mandarin orchard of Shreeram Thakre at village Khedarpur also in Katol taluka. The orchard was having fruits of Mrig bahar which was badly affected by hailstorm. About 80% of fruits had dropped and remaining fruits on the tree very severely wounded. The trunk, branches leave were badly damaged by the hailstorm. The committee suggested for spraying of Carbendazim@1 gm/lit to the affected plants to prevent further loss due to fungal disease.

The team also visited Warud area. However, the damage due to hailstorm was less in this pocket.