Heavy rainfall that lashed the state on Friday night has damaged wheat crop in the region. The rain started at around 7pm and continued till midnight.
Officials said there was 15mm rainfall in Jalandhar, 12mm in Nakodar and 40mm in Phillaur. The harvesting process has also got affected due to frequent spells of rain.
The farming community is panicked over the fact that the moisture content in wheat has increased from 20 to 22 per cent which will further delay the crop harvesting by another week.
Generally, 12 per cent to 15 per cent moisture is needed for the harvesting process. But the bad weather is not letting the moisture content go down.
"Apart from increasing the moisture content in the crop, it will affect the quality of grain and it might turn black. It will also reduce the crop price when farmers take it to the grain markets to sell it," an agriculture department official said.
This is for the second time that bad weather has flattened the wheat crop in many parts of the district recently.
HT visited wheat fields in Gillan, Gakhlan, Chamiara and Nahlan villages where the impact of rain was visible as the crop was lying flattened at most of the places.
{{/usCountry}}HT visited wheat fields in Gillan, Gakhlan, Chamiara and Nahlan villages where the impact of rain was visible as the crop was lying flattened at most of the places.
{{/usCountry}}Hardev Singh, a farmer of Gakhlan village, said, "I have to employ more labourers to harvest the crop. The downpour has affected the quality of grain besides inflicting loss," Singh said.
Chief agriculture officer Swatantra Kumar Aeri said, "This is unseasonable rain that will naturally impact the quality of the wheat and will affect the crop yield."
Aeri said wheat was sown over 1.69 lakh hectares in the district this year and the expected arrival of wheat in markets was 8.57 lakh metric tonnes (MT).