Punjab: After prolonged winter, wheat harvesting set to begin soon

With weather taking a turn and daytime temperature reaching nearly 30 degree Celsius, the colour of the green wheat fields has started to turn golden as farmers claimed that harvesting of the crop would begin after two weeks.

“If the temperature continues to increase at this pace, the wheat would mature within two to three weeks. High temperature results in loss of moisture from the grain,” said Joginder Singh, a farmer. He added that a prolonged winter usually helps in increasing wheat yield. “The winter this year was sufficiently long and it is hoped that the yield would be good this season,” he said.

Meanwhile, the farmers have already started harvesting early sown mustard varieties. The farmers stated that early sown mustard fields are ready for harvesting and the remaining would ripen within the next few days.

While the government procurement of wheat is expected to start from April 1, the district agriculture officials stated that the arrival of wheat in local markets would start after April 5. They stated that if the weather takes another turn and the temperature dips again, the harvesting of wheat could further get delayed.

The officials and farmers stated that the early sown wheat fields might be at risk if it rained in the next two weeks. Wheat crop is grown on nearly 1.80 lakh hectares in the district. The agriculture department officials stated that nearly 7 lakh metric tonnes of wheat is expected to arrive in the markets by the end of the harvesting season.

This article has been republished from The Tribune.