Agriculture and Plantation Industry Minister Mahinda Amaraweera has instructed Agriculture Department Director General to give him an immediate report regarding the incident of 21 metric tonnes of seed potatoes that have rotten in a store in Kuppaveli in Jaffna.
An investigation has been conducted by the Jaffna District Office of the Department of Agriculture and the report has been given to Minister Mahinda Amaraweera, yesterday (28).
The Deputy Director of the Agriculture Research Centre in Tirunelveli has also requested to conduct an investigation in this regard. This stock of seed potatoes was imported from Australia and stored in the Kuppaveli area in Jaffna for distribution among farmers.
However, due to not being properly stored, it has been found that a species of fungus and a species of bacteria have infected about 40 percent of the seed potato stock. It has been revealed in the pathogenic investigations that the majority of these seed potatoes are very rotten and the fungus called Geotrichum Spp and the bacteria called Pectobacterium Carotovorum have infected those seed potatoes.
In order to prevent environmental pollution, immediate disposal of spoiled seed tubers is advised under the supervision of authorized Plant Quarantine officers.After thorough testing, release of non-infected seed potato for field planting may be considered based on national plant quarantine recommendations. If it is recommended for that, uninfected tubers will be distributed to the farmers for field planting, and application of Thiophannate-Methyl 50%, and Thiram or a suitable fungicide should be recommended before planting.
Minister Mahinda Amaraweera has instructed Ministry Secretary Janaka Dharmakeerthi to take into consideration the loss caused to the government due to the failure to store these seed potatoes properly and to take into consideration the loss caused to the government by the destruction of these seed potatoes.
