economy

The portable semiconductor laser plant irradiation device developed recently by a research group of the Physics Faculty of Kim Il Sung University is attracting the attention of officials and working people in the agricultural sector. It is simple in structure and convenient to handle.

It reportedly has a good effect on the growth of crops for the important role of light in growth and development of the crops and the characteristic features peculiar to laser light including coherence, monochromatic property and directivity.

The Hyangjong Farm of Paechon County applied such laser light treatment technology to all the processes of farming practice to increase the production of paddy rice per hectare by over 500 kg last year. 

According to Kong Wan Gyu, manager of the farm, the laser light treatment technology raises the activities of several kinds of enzymes related to sprouting and breathing of seeds and the crops in growth stage and speeds up the process of metabolism and cell division to help crops grow quickly, ripen early and produce a higher yield. He said that his farm introduced this technology and gained huge benefits last year. 

Kim Thae Sun, a workteam leader of the farm, said that the technology was not only good in preventing crop damages by blights and harmful insects but also greatly beneficial in dry-field farming.

Last year when symptoms of asiatic rice borer were detected in several fields of the farm, paddy rice plants were irradiated with laser light at night, he said, adding that in a few days elements of the outbreak of harmful insects disappeared clearly and eventually a farmer finished the work, which should be carried out by a sub-workteam a day, in several hours.

The farm also increased the production of maize by over one ton per hectare by applying the technology to the cultivation of maize, the manager said. 

Through last year’s farming all its farmers adopted the viewpoint that scientific farming brings them ten times more benefits than investments.