E-Paper
Orchardists in HP worry about hail damage to fruit trees without nets, labourers
A yellow (severely bad weather) warning has also been issued for the middle hills on April 17, even as weather remained dry in the state during the last 24 hours.
Orchardists in Himachal Pradesh are worried about unavailability of nets and labourers to put them up to protect apple and stone fruit trees such as cherries from hailstorms as the nation remains locked down due to Covid-19.
They fear that rain and hail received now is likely to destroy crops.
“It’s getting difficult to find labourers. Many of us live far away from our orchards and are not able to go there. Stone fruits are about to ripen and we have requested the government to reopen factories which produce stone fruit packaging material,” said Surinder Mehta, an orchardist from Kotgarh.
Dr Manmohan Singh, director of the state’s meteorological department, said due to a fresh western disturbance, the higher reaches were likely to get snow with rain rain in the middle hills for the next few days.
A yellow (severely bad weather) warning has also been issued for the middle hills on April 17, even as weather remained dry in the state during the last 24 hours.
Minimum temperatures were normal while maximum temperatures were one to two degrees above normal.
Shimla remained dry with minimum temperature at 15.5 degrees Celsius.
Minimum temperature in Kufri was 12.5 degrees C, while Manali recorded 8.2 degree C and Dalhousie 14 degrees C. Dharamshala, Solan, Bilaspur and Harmirpur recorded lows of 12.8; 13, 16 and 16.5 degrees C, respectively.
Kalpa in Kinnaur district was a cool 6.7 degrees C, while Keylong in Lahaul-Spiti district was coldest at minus 2.6 degrees C.
Una was the warmest at 35.7 degrees C.
