Commodity Online NEW DELHI : Unseasonal rains amid continued rough weather could severely affect India’s Rabi harvest of grains especially the early variety of wheat in Punjab and Haryana.
According to a senior official of Punjab Agriculture Department, rains and cloudy conditions if persist for more days at this time when the crop is ready for harvesting, grains of early variety of wheat may turn black which is not good for the crop at this stage.
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He further said, "It is very crucial for the wheat crop that overcast or cloudy conditions should not prevail after rains otherwise fungus disease might emerge that will hit crop."
Moreover, the harvesting operations are likely to be delayed by over one week because of rains, even as Punjab and Haryana are geared up for lifting 170 lakh Metric tone of wheat during Rabi Marketing season 2009-10.
Rains have lashed four times during past one week at several parts of the Punjab and Haryana and overcast conditions continued to remain at several places.
Last year also rains lashed at this point of time but the emergence of sunlight proved to be beneficial for crop. About 70-80 per cent of wheat crop is early sown by farmers.
The Punjab government had last week ordered to conduct special revenue survey to assess the damage caused to wheat by rains. As per reports, wheat crop sown on 40,000-45,000 hectares of land was affected by rains.
Rains have also impacted the harvesting operations of wheat crop. Although there were some reports that wheat growers had started harvesting of crop in Bathinda, Mansa districts of Punjab and Gurgaon, Mahendragarh in Haryana.
Meanwhile, Punjab and Haryana claimed to have made elaborate arrangements for lifting wheat crop in rabi marketing season of 2009-10.
Punjab, this year, is expecting to procure 115 lakh MT of wheat against 105 lakh MT lifted last season. Haryana is also planing to purchase 55 lakh MT this season compared with 52.37 lakh MT lifted last year.
The Punjab government has set up 1,624 mandis while Haryana has approved 362 market sheds in the entire state for lifting wheat, officials of Food and Supplies department said. To make payment to farmers for lifting their crop, Punjab government has sought credit limit of Rs 12,153.20 crore from RBI while Haryana state has requested for Rs 4,347 crore.
Punjab has also made arrangement of 4.60 bales of gunny bags (each bale contains 500 bags) and it also arranged 1.20 lakh plastic bags for wheat. On the hand, Haryana has procured 50-55 lakh bags for storing wheat.
