Frost threatens crops in state

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 27

The deadly combination of delayed rain, persistent cold wave conditions and frost has started posing a threat to evergreen fruit trees like kinnows, mango, guava, litchi and some other crops particularly in the Kandi belt of the state.

The delay in rain has started adversely impacting all fruit trees and crops — mainly kinnow — in 50 per cent or 2.7 lakh hectares of the completely rain-fed land in the Kandi area.

The 10 per cent or 5.5 lakh hectares of the 45 lakh hectares of cultivable land in the Shivalik foothills in the districts of Pathankot, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Ropar, Mohali and parts of Nawanshahr are called the Kandi area. In addition to the fruits, oilseeds are grown in the area.

“The absence of rain has started casting its shadow on all crops. These have become vulnerable to frost in the ongoing dry weather conditions prevailing in Kandi as well as other parts of Punjab and the region,” said Vijay Bambeli, a Hoshiarpur-based soil expert.

He said the delay in rain has resulted in poor quality of kinnows that have lesser sugar content. “Farmers have been forced to irrigate their wheat fields with the help of tubewells. This means energy consumption, involves farm labour and results in depletion of ground water,” said Bambeli.

Dr Naresh Gulati, a Jalandhar-based farm expert, said, “The onset of a spell of rain like it usually occurs around Diwali or end of October could have saved a lot of ground water. The only positive of the dry spell is that it has delayed the attack of yellow rust on wheat crop.”

The minimum temperature is hovering around 2.2 to 3°C in Punjab these days, leading to fog and frosty conditions in the morning.

Dr Dinesh Kumar, Assistant Director, Horticulture Department, said frost had already been damaging guava, kinnow and mango plants. “Intermittent spell of rain in winter is always good for Punjab crops. But it should come without prolonged cloudy conditions which result in blight in vegetable crops,” he said.

Experts said though the low temperature was good for the ongoing tillering stage of wheat but the frost in the morning could lead to withering of leaves of crops like peas, chillies and tomatoes.

“For this, we recommend light watering or smoking of fields in the evening which leads to some rise in temperature, saving these crops from frost,” they said.