Pest wreaks havoc on green mangoes, jackfruits

The onset of summer sees rapid spread of giant mealybugs in fruit trees, causing much harm especially to immature jackfruits and mangoes in different areas of the district.         

Visiting different villages, this correspondent found the soft-bodied white insects, up to one-centimetre in length, sticking in clusters at the tender stalks of green jackfruits and mangoes as well as leaves and shoots.

Within a short time, the insects suck up the fluid of the tender fruits, leaves and shoots, making them blackish within 3-4 days, farmers said, adding that the affected portions eventually fall off.

Abul Hossain, a jackfruit farmer at Itakhola village in Sadar upazila, said the insects ruined around 600 pieces (50%) of the fruits in his ten trees and it would cause him loss of Tk 30 thousand.

"Giant mealybugs continued attacking my mango trees for the last 3-4 years, causing much harm. Their appearance usually sees alarming rise in proportionate to the rise of temperature in summer," said Sabed Ali of Putimari village in Kishoreganj upazila.

The insects were also seen moving on the walls and floors of the houses adjacent to the affected trees and the residents got skin disease and allergic problems as a result.

Application of different methods suggested by the agriculture officials so far brought hardly any results to check the insects, said the affected people.

The fruit trees once attacked by giant mealybugs are affected again in next years and it is difficult to eliminate them by spraying insecticides as the insects release a kind of viscous liquid that forms a dense coating on their body, said Keramot Ali, Sadar upazila agriculture officer.

"We suggest farmers to spray a mixture of insecticides belonging to imida clorapid and cloropyriphos groups," he said.

GM Idris, deputy director of the Department of Agriculture Extension in Nilphamari, said the insects do much harm especially to jackfruits and mangoes in the summer and disappear with the start of the rains.

"As soon as we get complaint, we try to address the problem with the help of our sub assistant agriculture officers posted at the union level," he added.