Climate-resilient wheat may push yield to 114 MT

By Neeraj Mohan

The upcoming rabi harvesting season may witness a historic milestone with the country’s wheat production poised to reach an unprecedented 114 million tonne (MT).

Farm experts attribute this optimistic forecast to the widespread adoption of high-yielding and climate-resilient wheat varieties, covering nearly 60 per cent of the wheat growing area, coupled with favourable weather conditions and timely advisories being issued to the farmers.

Despite a slightly reduced wheat cultivation area which has reached around 31 million hectares compared to the previous year’s 31.44 million hectares, scientists of the Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research, Karnal, are hopeful that the country’s wheat production would achieve the highest-ever target of 114 MT. According to the scientists, the key factor behind expected bumper produce is that over 60 per cent of the total wheat acreage is covered under the high-yielding and climate-resilient varieties, including DBW 296, DBW 327, DBW 332, DBW 303, DBW 187, DBW 222, WH1270 and PBW 771.

“In the past two years, a total 25 new varieties with climate resilient values have been identified. Eleven varieties were given to farmers this year,” said Gyanendra Singh, Director, ICAR-IIWBR, Karnal. He said the next target was to cover 80 per cent of the total area under wheat cultivation with the newly developed varieties.

Virender Singh Lather, retired principal scientist, Indian Agricultural Institute, ICAR, New Delhi, said the climate-resilient varieties showed tolerance against the climatic extremes of high or low temperatures and humidity. These varieties provided stability of crop yield and overall agricultural production.

This article has been republished from The Tribune.