Farm experts on Saturday asked wheatgrowers in Punjab to guard their crop against any fungal diseases like Yellow Rust and Karnal Bunt due to rain and cloudy weather conditions.
"Already the inoculum is well spread in Punjab's sub mountainous districts of SBS Nagar, Ropar, Hoshiarpur and
Gurdaspur," a spokesman of Punjab Agricultural University said. he further added that the wheat crop can be vulnerable to yellow rust due to the current weather in the state.
Last month, some wheat crop in Punjab and Haryana including Ropar, Nawanshahar and Ambala were hit by the yellow rust disease, which attacks leaves of wheat crop by forming yellow stripes and affects their photosynthesis activity that causes shrivelling of grain size.
He said apart from yellow rust development, the current weather can also cause Karnal bunt in wheat,a fungal disease that turns parts of wheat grain blackish and brittle, which adversely affects the grain quality.
Rains continued to lash many places in Punjab and Haryana for the third day on Saturday.
Punjab government, this year, has projected a higher wheat output of over 170 lakh tonne if weather conditions remain favourable.
Punjab had achieved highest wheat production of 179.82 lakh tonne in 2012-13 season.