The recent unseasonal showers and strong winds on Tuesday and Wednesday nights resulted in significant lodging of the nearly ripe wheat crop across several districts of the state.
According to an assessment by agriculture officials, around 7-8% of the crop in the district suffered flooding due to rains and thunderstorms. Ludhiana chief agricultural officer Gurdeep Singh said, “We have assessed the damage caused to the wheat in various parts of the district and found around 7-8% crop affected due to thunderstorms along with light rain on Wednesday night.”
Lodging affects the crop in two ways. First, when the plant falls, there is a chance that the stem may touch the ground and may be involved in rooting. This would summon the nutrients which the real roots would send to the almost ripe grains at the end of the plant. Second, when the plant falls, it leads to the general degradation of the quality of the grain.
While in the event of thunderstorms, there wasn’t much that a farmer could do to protect the crop, Singh however asked farmers to not water the crops anymore if they planned doing so. “Water softens the lower part of the crop and then it falls down more easily. So farmers should not water the crop in the coming days to prevent that,” he noted.
This rabi season, around 2.38 lakh hectare land was cultivated with wheat. The district received around 12 mm rain from 8:30 am on Tuesday to 8:30 am on Wednesday. The India Meteorological Department had issued a yellow alert for the district for April 7-8. The weatherman has not issued any weather alert for the coming days yet.