| "Rains at this juncture would be detrimental to the standing crop," Arvinder Singh, a Karnal-based wheat farmer, said. |
| Delhi and adjoining areas on Friday witnessed heavy rain, giving rise to expectations that the atmospheric pressure built up in the last few days over northwest India may spread to the wheat-growing belt of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. |
| "No rainfall occurred here, despite the rains in Delhi," the farmer said. |
| Sharing his experience, Singh said any rainfall in April is invariably followed by a hailstorm, damaging the standing crop. |
| Hailstorms flatten the standing crop and also reduce the number of grain buds. |
| Wheat, a temperature sensitive crop, has successfully passed the crucial grain-filling stage. |
| "The crop condition is still good," said N B Singh, central agriculture commissioner. |
| Favourable weather conditions during the grain-filling stage in January-February had led to an output of more than 76 million tonnes in 2007-08. The country's wheat output stood at 75.8 million tonnes in 2006-07. |
| Procurement scenario |
| The Food Corporation of India (FCI) aims at procuring 15 million tonnes (mt) this year as against 11 mt procured by it last year. |
| Wheat procurement has already picked up in states other than Punjab and Haryana - the two main producing states. |
| Procurement is now on in Gujarat.FCI has procured 150,000 tonnes as of April 4, against 2,000 tonnes in the year-ago period. |
| "The beginning is really good this year," said a top official of the designated state-owned wheat procurement agency. |
| India became a net wheat importer after a gap of six years in 2006, mainly due to output shortfall and rising consumption. |
| The government imported 5.5 mt of wheat in 2006 and contracted 1.8 mt in 2007 for import. The country's annual wheat consumption is pegged at 74 mt. |
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