MULTAN: Rains in northern areas and upper Punjab is expected to improve water availability for south Punjab cotton in irrigated areas during next ten (10) days at a time when the white gold crop needed it the most.

This was stated by irrigation department officials in a meeting chaired by south Punjab secretary agriculture Saqib Ali Ateel to discuss cotton crop and water availability at the agriculture secretariat here Monday.

Saqib said that cotton crop direly needed water at this stage when it was passing through processes of boll formation, fruit and flower stage.

An official representing chief engineer irrigation department informed the meeting that hopes were high that water availability would improve in next ten days adding that water release from Mangla and Tarbela dams was being increased with the gradual rise in water level in the two dams.

Saqib said that cotton areas where ground water was salty, crop be provided ground water mixed with canal water for better resource management and to take cotton crop out of the stress.

He said, expected change in weather conditions like rising level of humidity in the atmosphere could increase pest pressure and advised farmers weekly application of mixture of bio safety pesticides to timely control infestation of white fly, Jassid and pink bollworm to keep them under the economic threshold level (ETL).

Chrysopa and Trychograma pheromone cards be installed in the fields. Where pink bollworm attack is witnessed, farmers should bury the affected flowers. However, Saqib advised delay in applying chemical pesticides to control pink bollworms pleading that spray can cause increase in white fly infestation.

Deputy secretaries Asif Raza and Dr. Haidar Karrar, deputy directors agriculture extension, irrigation officials Pervaiz Akhtar, Mazhar Rasool and Roshan Charagh, and others attended the meeting.