Farm crops, particularly wheat, are ailing from serious plant diseases and insect pests following an unusually warm winter across China.

 

Information from the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture shows that nationwide, 1.69 million ha of farm crops in 371 counties had developed plant diseases up to April 5, up 19 percent from the previous year.

 

The agricultural bureau of east China's Shandong Province says one quarter of the province's 4.17 million-hectare sown wheat area has been affected by diseases such as yellow rust and insect pests including wheat aphids and mites.

 

Shandong, on the east China seaboard, is the second largest grain production base in China after Henan Province in central China.

 

Wang Yuzheng, a researcher with the Shandong Provincial Agricultural Bureau, reckoned that global warming and El Nino could make this year the hottest since China began keeping meteorological records.

 

"High temperatures and drought are very much on the cards this year. Plant diseases and insect pests -- more serious than normal years or starting earlier than usual -- are an indication of things to come," said Wang.

 

The agricultural bureau of Dongying, a city in the Yellow River Delta under the jurisdiction of Shandong Province, said it inspected 660 sites and found locust eggs in 50 of them. Locust egg density has reached 6.3 per sq m, up from less than 4 a year ago.

 

The Dongying agricultural bureau predicted that locusts will affect 113,333 hectares of crops in the city this summer, slightly more than last year.

 

(Xinhua News Agency April 18, 2007)