Rains play havoc with wheat, mustard crops

Ongoing rains and storms have hit harvesting and procurement of rabi crops such as wheat and mustard, farm experts and government officials said Thursday.

Farmers are now gearing up for sowing cotton, while the sugarcane crop in south India is under threat from the woolly aphid pest prevails.

Wheat, which is India's most important rabi crop, is sown in winter and harvested in summer. Untimely post-harvest rains reduce the lustre of the outer wheat kernel and increases the moisture in grains. This results in sticky flour.

"The untimely low pressure area having developed in north India and resulting western disturbance has led to rains in most wheat-growing areas," said S Nagarajan, director, Indian Agriculture Research Institute.

In areas where wheat is still bundled up in the fields, the amylase activity""grains soaking water""would have happened, he said.

In places where threshers have been used for harvesting and grains are yet to be moved to a safer place for sale or storage, there is an impact on the crop, he added. Incidence of brown rust fungus has been found in Punjab's wheat crop.

"Brown rust incidence with 30 per cent severity in some pockets of the state has been seen and this resulted in a yield loss of about 5 per cent," he said.

The adverse impact of untimely rains has been particularly felt in east Uttar Pradesh where wheat is sown late and harvesting is still on, an agriculture ministry official said.

Rains have also affected the government procurement operations, not only for wheat but also for mustard, he said.

The National Agricultural Cooperative and Marketing Federation, the nodal agency for mustard procurement, has already purchased over 1.3 million tonnes of mustard in the current April-March marketing season.

Meanwhile, incidence of woolly aphid pest has been observed on sugarcane in south India. The pest generally attacks the crop after it is four months old. Farm scientists said advisories have already been issued on how to tackle the menace and prevent the situation from getting out of control.

It is too late to spray chemicals but parasites, which are not harmful for sugarcane, are being released to eat the pest.

Bio-control agents are being used to prevent any major damage to the cane crop, officials said. Farmers are preparing soil beds to transplant cotton and sowing is about to begin in a week's time, officials said and added government has already released new transgenic hybrids for commercial cultivation.

According to an official report, moderate infection of flea beetle was observed on various crops in north Karnataka. Pruning of grapes has been completed in that state.

Pomegranates are in a flowering stage. In Andhra Pradesh, heavy damage has occurred to mango orchards in nearly 2,000 acres in Adilabad district due to high-speed wind and hailstorms.

Harvesting of groundnut, mango, cashewnut and arecanut, vegetables and chilli are in progress in Maharashtra. Sowing of millet, maize, and rice and weeding of potato are in progress in Uttranchal.

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The gloomy spell

• Wheat is sown in winter and harvested in summer. Untimely post-harvest rains reduce the lustre of the outer wheat kernel and increases the moisture in grains
• Rains have also affected the government procurement operations for wheat and mustard
• In Andhra Pradesh, mango orchards have been damaged due to high-speed wind and hailstorms