Rain raises wheat crop prospects

[LahoreEstate]

Wednesday, February 11, 2009
By Jawwad Rizvi

LAHORE

The ongoing rains will bring positive impact on the Rabi crops and help get a bumper wheat crop.

Timely rains have also compensated for urea fertilizer shortage and would minimise its impact on crop production and also save money for the farmers.

The Rabi crops across the country are at growing stage and the rains from this western spell is expected to have a good impact on the agriculture of the country.

During this period, the daily temperature had slightly moved towards higher side. However, there will be no significant shortfall of water requirement for the standing crops. All these signs bring positive impact on the wheat crop as well as other Rabi crops which are at pre-maturing stage; the wheat crop is at shooting stage. The water requirement of Rabi crops is not as high as mature crops. The recent rains will also improve per acreage yield as well as crop health.

Similarly, the rains will also boost other Rabi crops including gram, maize, sugarcane, sunflower and other minor crops. Rain in March could bring negative impact on gram crops when it will at maturing stage. The rain would also be helpful for crops to be cultivated in next couple of weeks.

The government has set wheat-sowing area for Punjab at 6.460 million hectares and covered 6.606 million hectares (2.26 per cent more than target). For Sindh, the government has set a target of 0.992 million hectares and covered around 1.027 million hectares (3.52 per cent more than the target). For NWFP, the government has set the target of 0.75 million hectares and covered 0.745 million hectares (0.67 per cent less than the target). Similarly, for Balochistan the government has set the target of 0.41 million hectares but achieved 0.371 million hectares, which is ten per cent less than the target.

Hamid Malhi, a progressive farmer said increase in the wheat sowing area as well as timely rain would help increase the wheat production this year as compared to the last year. He further said the country might achieve a bumper wheat crop.

Agriculture experts of the Punjab Agriculture Extension Wing said the timely rain during the whole Rabi season was a blessing. They said the current rainy season was a indeed a good omen for wheat growers. After current rain, the standing wheat crop will quickly shoot up and it will grow in a better way.

They said wheat-growing areas of the province had received widespread rains during December 6 to December 11 and December 19 to December 20 2008. Similarly, the rains during first and third week of January 2009 also left positive impact on the wheat crop. The experts of the Agriculture Extension department said if the temperature remained below 27 centigrade during February and March 2009 a bumper wheat crop could be achieved.

http://thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=162005