The Hindu Business Line : Record wheat crop in the offing

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New Delhi March 3 Agricultural scientists are veering around to the view that this year's wheat crop, as things stand, will be a record breaking one. And, if what they say materialises over the next month, it could well herald a vital breakthrough in the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram's protracted battle against inflation.

"The area under wheat is at an all-time-high of 28.5 million hectares (mh). The tillering performance has been good. The prevailing temperatures are ideal for grain filling. Rains in February have ensured that the crop is nowhere facing moisture stress. And there has been no incidence of rust, aphids or termites. What more can we ask for?" said Dr Jag Shoran, Principal Scientist at the Directorate of Wheat Research, Karnal (DWR).

`Early dough' stage

According to him, the only thing standing in the way of a bumper harvest is rains accompanied by hail and fast winds, which could make the ear-heads heavy and cause lodging. The wheat crop in Punjab, Haryana and the rest of the Indo-Gangetic plain is now at the `early dough' stage, which follows ear-head emergence and flowering towards the last week of February.

The 40-45 days after flowering is the time for `grain filling', which, to a large extent, determines the weight (and, therefore, yield) of the grain harvested after mid-April. In the present early dough period, the starch matter is still milky and semi-solid. As long as maximum temperatures are within 35 degrees Celsius till the last week of March, the normal onset of summer would dry up the moisture and make the grain hard.

Weight gain

Scientists estimate that every extra day on the field after mid-March means an additional grain weight of 45-50 kg per hectare. Thus, if the crop matures 10 days early, it translates into a yield loss of roughly half a tonne. "The way conditions are, I don't see any repeat of last year, when we had an abrupt rise in March temperatures that cut short the grain-filling process. What we do not want now are heavy rains and hail. Even light rains are fine, to the extent they keep the weather cool", Dr Shoran noted.

The most torrid phase for the wheat crop this time was from the last week of January to the first week of February, when it seemed that the country was headed for its shortest ever winter. "We had low temperatures during December to early January and that was good for tillering (stem formation). Then came this brief heat spell, which mercifully ended with rains from the second week of February, which also benefited the rainfed wheat in Central India", he added.