Rain pangs: Farmers face problem in wheat sowing

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, December 15

With two spells of heavy rain in the past two weeks in the region, many farmers are facing difficulty in preparing their fields for wheat sowing.

Earlier, haze due to a dense blanket of smoke was not allowing them to initiate the work. Now, after the clearing of the sky and dissipating of the stubble burning smoke and two spells of heavy rain, many farmers are facing a problem in preparing their fields for wheat sowing.

As cloudy weather conditions will persist for next three-four days, the farmers fear for a loss to wheat yield as they have to opt for late-sowing varieties.

Sowing wheat by November 15 is the ideal time and a delay after that means a loss of 1.5 quintal per acre per week, said experts in the Agriculture Department.

While the department here claimed that about 90 per cent of the wheat sowing was already completed, but many farmers, who had sown their crop this month, said there was no proper germination and sprouting of the wheat seed after a spell of heavy rain in the first week of December as it was covered with a hard crust of soil. For this reason, many farmers were waiting to prepare their fields to sow the crop again.

Usually, over 90 per cent wheat sowing is completed in the first fortnight of November in the state. But this time, only about 10-15 per cent of wheat crop had been sown by that time due to a long spell of smog and smoke, said the experts.

As the scattered clouds continue to hover over the sky, these are not allowing enough sunshine to reach the rain-irrigated fields.

After rain, the farmers would have to wait for one more week as sowing in the soil with high-moisture content was not practicable and good for germination of the seed, said experts.

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.