Mandarin growers across the country continue to struggle with citrus fruit drops caused by citrus fruit flies, leading to the premature dropping of fruits before they fully ripen. To manage citrus fruit flies in Tsirang, farmers from Mendrelgang Gewog recently participated in a two-day citrus fruit fly management training and awareness campaign. Tsirang is one of the major mandarin-growing districts in the country.
Around 70 mandarin growers and gewog agriculture extension supervisors attended the training and awareness campaign.
After completing a day of in-house training, the trainers and participants visited nearby mandarin orchards in Mendrelgang Gewog.
They collected and disposed of all fallen fruits in pits, encouraging mandarin growers to address the infestation effectively.
Mandarin experts said that the current fruit drop is primarily caused by Chinese fruit flies.
The female fruit flies lay eggs on the fruits when they are about the size of a marble, usually around June.
The eggs develop into larvae and remain in the citrus fruits until October. Infected fruits then turn prematurely yellow and fall, affecting up to 70 per cent of mandarin production.
Participants said that the training is timely, as citrus fruit flies have severely impacted mandarin orchards in recent years, significantly affecting their income.
Although mandarin growers in Tsirang have previously attended similar trainings, they have not consistently adhered to control measures.
Golay, a mandarin grower said “A significant number of fruits start dropping from October till November. This may be because we are not spraying pesticides on time. I have been buying majority of mandarin from the gewog every year. Some orchards have good mandarin production, but some do not have.”
Sangay Pemo, another mandarin grower said “We attended similar awareness programmes in the past, but we have not implemented pick and dump practice like today. Through the training, we also knew that the affected mandarins can be dumped and used as manure.”
Officials from the Agriculture Research and Development Centre in Bajo and the National Citrus Repository in Tsirang said that the control measures are both inexpensive and effective.
However, they added that the lack of consistent practice among mandarin growers has hindered the proper management of citrus fruit flies.
The officials plan to monitor the implementation of the control measures closely moving forward.
Phuntsho Wangdi, National Coordinator of National Citrus Repository said “It is still a problem, and it is still going to be a problem because generated technologies are not adopted by our farmers. So, that is why we have organised the campaign just to give awareness to the mandarin growers that we need to control this fruit fly timely. If we don’t control this fruit fly at this time of the year then, this fruit fly will take over citrus production in the years to come.”
Ugyen Dema, Plant Protection Officer of ARDC said “It requires the whole community’s support to manage the citrus fruit fly. If one follows the practice and others don’t do it, it won’t work because there is risk of citrus fruit flies spreading to others. So, we will be revisiting the gewog within this month for follow up to see whether mandarin growers are dumping the damaged fruits in pits or not.”
Unlike in the past, farmers have said that they will implement the measures seriously this time.
Sangay Pemo added that “from now we will be exploring the possibility of signing agreements among mandarin growers to implement the pick and dump practice. After complying with the technique and if some are not serious about it, we will be reporting matter to the respective Chiwog Tshogpas.”
Ram Chandra Katal, Agriculture Extension Supervisor of Mendrelgang Gewog said “Some of the mandarin growers could not attend the training this time. So, for them, I will be meeting them separately at the chiwog level and will brief them on what we have learnt during the training.”
The National Citrus Repository at the Agriculture Research and Development Sub-Centre in Tsirang has developed a standard operating procedure for uniform implementation of control measures across all 12 gewogs in the district.
Last year, Tsirang produced over 3,000 metric tonnes of mandarins.
Pema Tshewang, Tsirang
Edited by Tshering Zam
