The Seminar

The seminar was to be held on 22-2-09 at local government school.Dr.Kumar came to Markanja on 20-2-09 evening after visiting Jedla Shreedhr Bhats plot.Next day he applied few bio controllers in my plot as an experiment. At the same time Dr.Ghosh from Pest control India too visited my plot. He gave metarizium anisapole of their company and applied it in a basket with grubs mixed with cow dung.He remained with us for the whole day.After treatment in my plot we visited about five farmers plot in the village which was affected by the grub problem.One of the plot visited was affected by yellow leaf disease.At the same time under the guidance of Mapalthota Krishna Bhat a few persons along with the students and teachers of the school made arrangments for the seminar in the school.Mapalthota Subraya Bhat brought vegitables and other things needed for the lunch. Next day,that is Sunday,we went to the school at 9 am. Several farmers brought grubs collected from their plot.Dr.Kumar identified all grubs brought as of bermistry variety except one.That was brought from Mairaje of Markanja village and it was lepidaphora variety.Those attended the seminar includes Dr.Anand and Dr.Ravi Bhat of C.P.C.R.I.Vittal,Dr.Hanumanthappa and Dr.Virendra Kumar of K.V.K.Manglore,Dr.Shivanna of K.V.K.Brahmavar. Badanaje Shankar Bhat,Shrinivas Achar,Padar Ramakrishna Shastri,also attended. Amongst the farmers a good number of them came from other taluks like Puttur, Belthangady, Karkala,Manglore. Around 250 farmers were present in the seminar.I am sorry if I have omitted any other persons name whom I must mention here.Using slides Dr.Kumar explained the life cycle of the grub ,efforts done to control it and his methodology to control the problem.Farmers were actively participated with their questions. I am going to write the gist of his talking at another place. Almost all press persons who were in Sullia and Etv and Suvarna news channel's reporters too were present. Media highlighted the program and thus very good after coverage too got to the seminar. The local M.L.A. S. Angara came to the seminar on his own. After a few minutes of listening to Kumars talking he invited all scientists to a room and asked them what must be done from the government side to control this problem.After Kumar sir gave his opinion I asked for a Lab for Sullia to help farmers. But they were politicians and I am told in later days that he did nothing afterwords. But on the whole the seminar was a huge success and most of the farmers participated were seem to be happy. From my side I was happy since the seminar brought down a few myths associated with grub problem.