Farmers advised to postpone harvesting of wheat, barley

Farmers advised to postpone harvesting of wheat, barley
Archit Watts
Tribune News Service

Chatha/Jammu, April 18
Following overnight rain and hailstorm at several places across the Jammu region yesterday, the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Jammu, (SKUAST) has advised farmers to postpone the harvesting of wheat and barley crops till the weather turns sunny.

Till the weather gets clear, the farmers should avoid harvesting the standing crops because storing them in prevailing weather conditions would cause more damage to the grain, said experts of the Agrometeorology Department, SKUAST.

They added that the chances of damage to granules of the standing crops in such weather conditions were less compared to the damage to the harvested crops.

The experts said, “Keeping the weather in view, the farmers have been advised to make necessary arrangements to prevent any possible damage to their crops. The temperature, both maximum and minimum, has remained much lower than the normal, affecting the size of granules this year”. He added that the full ripening of crops was also delayed.

In the last 24 hours, the region witnessed 14 mm of rain. The officials of the Meteorology Department said the rain due to the western disturbances had brought down the mercury by a few notches. In April till today, 24.4 mm of rain had been recorded.

A visit to various villages in the RS Pura area revealed that though the effect of the rain was less on the standing wheat crop, the vegetable crops had been badly destroyed. “The weather disturbances in the last seven days have damaged the crops, especially vegetables. Yesterday’s hailstorm will also show its effect on vegetables, as their prices will shoot up,” said Ghanshyam Dass, a farmer at Abdullian village, who has sown wheat and vegetables on 10 acres.

He added, “The wheat crop is in its final stage of ripening and is ready for harvesting, but rain God has not been kind to us this year. Already, the yellow rust has affected the crop and if there is one or more similar spells of rain, the entire wheat crop will be damaged”.

About the changing climate conditions and its effects, experts of the SKUAST said the maximum temperature hovered around 4.5°C less than the normal temperature. Humidity in the air was also recorded above 80 per cent, while the wind speed was recorded as 4 km/hour.

The experts said while the major crops like wheat and barley and vegetables had been damaged, horticulture crops like mango, which is in the flowering stage, had been infected. Besides, the yield of papaya, ber, loquat and plum had also been affected. They added that the sowing of pulses like moong and mash had also been delayed.

Meanwhile, the Agriculture Department has started a fresh exercise to assess damage caused to crops.