Star News Agency

New Delhi. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has issued following advisories to fish farmers in flood affected states of Andhra and Karnataka:

Fish Farms situated in the upland areas that are not washed totally need to prevent loss of crop by erecting elongated fencing made by stripe bamboos or any other available fencing material with a layer of net material all along the periphery of pond. Bamboo / nylon mesh screens should be erected at the inlets and outlets to prevent loss and entry of unwanted fish. The farmers also need to salvage fish, particularly Brood stock from inundated ponds and tanks and transfer to safer places either in cages or in ponds. Breaches should be blocked and drainage of pond repaired.

After flood recedes, fish pond should be drained completely to drain weed fishes wherever possible and lime @ 200kg/ha/pond applied to accelerate mineralization of detritus. Mahua oil cake @ 1000kg/ha/pond for every meter depth need to be applied to remove unwanted fishes wherever draining is not possible. Repeated netting is also desired to remove unwanted fishes. Grow-out ponds need to be restocked with fingerlings.

Shrimp crop in the affected areas is 30-40 DOC and as such harvesting is not advisable, instead crop should be salvaged and stored in hatcheries wherever feasible. After water level recedes apply lime between300-500kg/ha to keep contusive pH.

Farmers should be vigilant for outbreak of any disease caused due to decrease in salinity due to high rains/floods. In this eventuality they are advised to apply alky-dimethyl-benzyl ammonium chloride @3ppm as disinfectant.

As bio-security measures taking water from outside should be avoided, water in reservoir ponds need to be chlorinated before letting in emergency conditions and farm implements washed in Potassium permanganate before use in each pond.