Farmers in Karangura Sub County in Kabarole district are counting losses following the spread of banana rust thrips disease in the area.
An infected plant starts by changing from green to black and hardens. The bananas lose taste if cooked. As the affected fruits continue to grow, sometimes the peel cracks causing scarring.
Joyce Mutwanga a farmer from Kakindo Zone told URN that the affected banana starts showing signs and symptoms at the time of flowering but it still grows up to the time of harvesting.
Mutwanga said that they tried using pesticides thinking it was the Banana Bacterial Wilt but the disease was resistant to the pesticides and has continued to ravage their plantations.
Christine Twesige, another farmer from Kibaga B Zone says that they suspect that the disease is spread during pollination. Twesige explains that the disease usually emerges at the flowering stage.
According to Twesige, buyers are shunning bananas which has led to losses yet agriculture is their sole source of income.
Farmers in the Sub County are also struggling to contain an outbreak of pests that have affected coffee farmers.
Charles Mugenyi, a coffee farmer says that they have been attacked by over three types of pests that are eating the coffee seeds. He says one of the worms eats the coffee balls and they fall off the branches while the other affects the stems which dry up.
Elisha Esibarenga an extension worker says that the farmers should for the time being use local organic concoctions to spray on their crops instead of using inorganic pesticides, which he says are fake.
Esibarenga also says that they have sent samples of the affected plants to the National Agricultural Research Organization-NARO and the results are yet to be released.
