Pakistan’s position as the world’s top ranked citrus producing country has downgraded from World No.10 to 13 in the past 5 years due to a number of factors including plant diseases, low productivity, and traditional way of farming. The production will further narrow down if steps were not taken to fight the diseases like citrus greening and others.
This was stated by speakers at one-day Citrus Nurserymen Training Workshop organized by the Institute of Horticulture Sciences, University of Agriculture Faisalabad in collaboration with the Pakistan Agriculture and Meat Company (PAMCO) and ASLP. IHS Director Prof Dr Amjad Ali Aulak, addressing the inaugural session, said that Pakistan was producing 30 major fruits and among them, citrus was at the top while across the globe, it was at number second after grapes in term of its production. He stressed the need to adopt latest practices of the fruit, making it at par with the international standard in order to generating heavy foreign revenue. He said with the proper care, balanced use of fertilizer and coping with the virus are the tools to attain the goal. He said as many as 30 viral diseases of citrus were playing havoc with it in our country. He called for step up efforts with applying latest methods to control the diseases. Otherwise, drastic reduction would be seen in citrus.
PAMCO representative Jawad Qadir said his company was working on the Halal meat, kitchen gardening and new zone for the fruit, He under the new zone project, the Potohar is selected for olive production, Cholistan for grapes and Layyah and Bakhar for citrus. He said that the UAF was the partner of them in capacity building. He also guided the farmers about the modern methods and ways to boost up their production .Associate Prof Dr Muhammad Jaffar Jaskani said that it is a matter of the concern that our per plant and life was low. He said that the issue can be overcome if we use the international practices. He added that average life of a citrus plant was forty to fifty years across the globe. He said with the increment in life and production of plant, we can excel in the field. He also highlighted the various citrus diseases and their solutions and latest practices and urged the participants to adopt them in a bid to increase production.