Vidarbha region has a total of 1,50,000 hectares of land under orange crop, out of which 25% of the land is severely affected and damaged by Kolshi which is a Black Fly Disease.
Kolshi is a disease caused mainly by a sucking pest, a black fly. It belongs to the Aphid category of pests. Its’ scientific name is Aleurocanthus woglumi. When the pest attacks the crops, it secretes a liquid that covers the fruits as well as the leaves. This liquid turns black gradually. When a farmer tries to spray insecticides on the tree and the fruits it does not help to cure this disease as the liquid cannot penetrate the black layer due to moisture on the plant.
Kolshi is mainly affecting those orchards which have very heavy cotton soil or those farmers who haven’t followed the management practices properly.
Kolshi was introduced in Vidarbha during the last rainy season, due to heavy rains especially from July to September. 75% of the farmers could manage the disease as their soil was light and they followed proper management practices. But unfortunately, 25% could not be resulting in very bad fruit quality.
Raju Nimkar, a farmer from Budla village in Kalmeshwar taluka in conversation with The Live Nagpur said “I faced a loss of Rs 2 lakh due to the Kolshi. I have a total of 800 orange trees in my orchard. Out of which 400 trees got affected as this orchard had heavy cotton soil. Four hundred trees did not get affected as I had planted them in the light soil.”
Mangesh Selukar, another farmer from Kalmeshwar added “I produce 45 tonnes of oranges from 325 trees. Half of them are very severely affected by the black fly disease due to which I suffered a loss of almost Rs 2.5 lakh.”
These farmers said that the general wholesale price of oranges in the market is about Rs 25 per Kg or Rs 25,000 per ton. But since their fruit has been badly affected they are not even getting half the price of their produce.
