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At the mercy of weather, say farmers as fresh rain wreaks havoc to wheat crop
The fresh rainfall which started on Thursday night has added to the woes of Punjab farmers who have already suffered damages to the near-harvest wheat crop during the previous spell of rain, high-velocity winds and hailstorm last week.
The fresh rainfall which started on Thursday night has added to the woes of Punjab farmers who have already suffered damages to the near-harvest wheat crop during the previous spell of rain, high-velocity winds and hailstorm last week.
In the current spell, Mohali, Patiala, Sangrur, Barnala, Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Bathinda, Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur received rain throughout the day, leading to submergence of wheat crop. Some of the districts received 20mm rain on a single day and Met department has predicted rain on April 1 also.
“The fresh downpour will increase the losses that wheat crop suffered during last week’s weather disturbance,” said SS Gosal, vice-chancellor, Punjab Agricultural University, while adding that due to the present spell, the grain of the fallen crop will suffer losses beyond repair.
“The loss is 80-100% to the wheat crop where rainwater has accumulated, otherwise it is 20% loss for sure due to bad weather conditions,” said Jaswant Singh of Khokh village in Nabha, Patiala. He had sown the crop over 18 acres. “Vegetable and melons have suffered total loss. Due to rainfall, these plants can’t grow,” he added.
“It is an unbearable loss to crop. My entire 23 acres are submerged. I was expecting bumper crop and hoped to recover past losses but rain has washed away all hopes,” said Sukhwinder Singh from Samrala in Ludhiana district.
He added that it is difficult to harvest with machines and it is unpractical to manually cut the crop as labour is either not available or is too exorbitant. “Against the hopes of a yield of more than 25 quintals, now I am not expecting more than 15 quintals,” said a heart-broken Sukhwinder.
“We are at the mercy of the weather now. No advisory or corrective action works now. How much water can the farmers extract out of their fields when it is rain continuously,” said director, agriculture, Gurvinder Singh. He adds that the crop would suffer lustre loss and size of grain would also be affected.
According to the director, the government would start giving compensation to farmers for the crop loss from April 1, as girdwari being conducted to assess the quantum of loss. He added that due to rain, cotton and moong crop have been delayed.
Cotton, moong sowing delayed
According to director agriculture, due to rainfall, sowing of cotton and moong crops would also be delayed. “It was scheduled to start from April 1, but now it will be delayed at least by 15 days, which would have an adverse impact on the yield,” he added.
