Record Wheat Crop in the offing

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.