The Northwest plains will have weather favourable for frost conditions during morning hours that could harm the early winter crops especially wheat and Mustard. Amritsar, Bhatinda, Firozpur, Gurdaspur and Muktsar districts of Punjab will witness frost in the next two days. Winter crops in Haryana are also under the threat of frost.
Frost occurs due to low surface temperature that leads to condensation of moisture prevailing in the surrounding areas and covers the crops to harm them. The minimum temperatures have dropped significantly in these areas and are staying below normal by up to 4 degrees.
Morning temperature in Narnaul in Haryana dipped to 1.8 degrees on Thursday. Bhiwani and Hisar recorded 2.6 and 2.1 degrees as minimum temperatures respectively. Amritsar in Punjab recorded 2.2 degrees as minimum which is two degrees below normal. Such low temperatures tend to form frost in North India during winters.
Weather experts believe that the frost alert in North India will give farmers time to lessen the impact of frost by irrigating the fields. Plenty of water will prevent moisture from condensing to form frost.
Wheat, the main Rabi crop, has been planted over about 273.97 lakh hectares against 253.20 lakh hectares during the same period last year in India. Current sowing trend in wheat has raised expectations of its total acreage exceeding last year’s level of 298.3 lakh hectares. High soil moisture and fall in temperature is favourable for growth of wheat crop.
There is a projection of bumper mustard seed crop this year on account of higher acreage and favourable weather conditions till now. Mustard seed production is expected to increase. Timely sown crop is at vegetative stage and intercultural operations like thinning, weeding etc. are being carried out in North India. Overall weather is favourable for the crop.
