0 Fungal diseases cause harvest failures in Bantul

High humidity brought on by extreme weather has led to a risk of harvest failures as fungal diseases infect hundreds of hectares of paddy fields in Bantul, Yogyakarta. “The diseases attack the stems of the rice plants, causing them to become dry and broken,” Bantul agriculture and forestry chief Edy Suharyanta said on Tuesday. “We have sprayed the rice crops with fungicides and identified the paddy fields destroyed by the diseases. We estimate that the fungal diseases have caused harvest failures over hundreds of hectares,” Edy said. 

Bantul’s rice harvest has declined by 60 percent due to fungal diseases and rice pests, he said. “Normally, we can get 20 sacks of unhulled paddy in each harvest. But in recent harvests, we could get only 10 sacks of unhulled paddy. Most of the rice grains were empty or half-filled,” Satari, a farmer from Baran, said. “We are facing unpredictable weather. It is mostly rain in the morning but suddenly, temperatures are above average in the daylight. Such condition cause high humidity that can lead to the rapid growth of fungal diseases,” he said. Satari said that the current weather had been unpredictable. “We have been unable to predict the weather during the last two years,” Satari said. (ebf)

source : the jakarta post