Season’s first dense fog brings cheer to Karnal wheat growers

Parveen Arora

Karnal, November 29

The region witnessed its first dense fog of the season on Wednesday morning and that brought the mercury down by around three degrees.

Scientists of the ICAR-Indian Institute and Wheat and Barley Research (IIWBR) claimed that the dip in temperature was beneficial for the wheat crop.

“The onset of fog across the state has brought down the temperature, which will be beneficial for the wheat crop. The crop which were sown early and irrigated once, will benefit,” said Dr Gyanendra Singh, Director, ICAR-IIWBR.

Sporadic drizzling that took place on Tuesday will also favour the wheat crop, the Director said.

A majority of the farmers have cultivated high-yielding, climate-resilient and biofortified wheat varieties of the institute, including -327, 332, 370, 371, 372, 187, and 303, which will help in achieving the target of 114MT of wheat production in the country, he added.

The farmers are also happy with the dip in temperature along with light rain in the past 24 hours. “The wheat crop requires low temperature at this stage and the drizzling on Tuesday and fog on Wednesday morning contributed a lot in lowering the temperature and increasing the moisture level in the air, which are ideal for wheat,” said Kewal, a farmer of Karnal block.

He said due to fog, there was less evaporation of water from the soil, which would help in maintaining the soil moisture.

Rajinder Singh, another farmer, said drizzling and fog would help in increasing the yield and quality of wheat this season. “Fog and drizzle are required at this stage for wheat as it will help in increasing the tillering,” he said.

The farmers who had harvested paddy late due to flood may be affected by low temperature.This will delay the germination process by five to six days, said an agriculture expert.