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Rootwilt disease spreads to TN coconut gardens

G.K. Nair

KOCHI, May 29

ROOTWILT disease which is widely spread in Kerala's coconut palms has now seem to have spilled over to the plantations in Tamil Nadu's Cumbum valley.

Heavy incidence of the disease almost in a epidemic form had been found in the coconut gardens in the Cumbum valley region and the circumstantial evidences suggested that the disease could have spread from Kerala, according to scientists at the regional station of the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute (CPCRI) at Kayamkulam in Kerala.

Since the disease was infectious, it would become a serious threat to coconut cultivation in Cumbum valley and the adjoining region in Tamil Nadu, they said.

According to them, a comprehensive garden-to-garden survey was necessary in Cumbum area to assess the exact extent of occurrence of the disease in the region and a strategy should be applied to contain it so as to prevent its further spread.

Surveillance of gardens in the sparsely infected places with prompt removal of diseased palms as and when they appear for a long period would help in eliminating the source of infection and then its recurrence. In the heavily diseased gardens, all infect ed juvenile palms and all disease advanced, uneconomic palms should be removed and replanting should be done with healthy elite seedlings, they said.

However, involvement of both the Central and State Government agencies along with the active participation of the farmers in Cumbum valley was the need of the hour for tackling this disease problem.

Movement of seedlings from the disease region to other areas in the State should be arrested to avoid the disease spread. It also demanded more effective and constant surveillance-monitoring of all the districts of Tamil Nadu bordering Kerala to check th e spread of rootwilt disease, the scientists said.

Coconut palms in around 2.5 lakh hectares out of the total 10 lakh hectares under coconut in Kerala were infected by the disease. Palms in the districts of Thrissur, Ernakulam, Idukki, Kottayam, Alapuzha, Pathanamthitta, Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram had been affected by it in endemic form, the Coconut Development Board sources said.

Stray incidence had been noticed in all the other districts in the North except Wayanad. In Tamil Nadu, Coimbatore, Pollachi, Sengottai and Kulasekharam regions had past records of the rootwilt disease incidence, they said.

Meanwhile, Dr. Abdul Salam, Head of the Cashew Research Station of the Kerala Agricultural University, said instead of replanting the area affected by the disease with coconut seedlings, it should be planted with cashew. Most of the coconut palms affecte d were there for several decades and hence a crop rotation could be an ideal solution, he told Business Line on Monday. Out of 2.5 lakh hectares affected, the CDB could think of planting cashew in 25,000 hectares on an experimental basis. Even in the aff ected regions of Tamil Nadu also this could be done, he said. ``This could turn out to be a natural remedy'', he claimed.