Growers are advised to take timely steps to protect their standing fruit and vegetable crops from winter frost keeping in view the existing foggy and cold weather conditions in the country’s plains. The MET office on Monday released its 10-day advisory for farmers, saying drop in temperature, high humidity, cold air and foggy conditions are likely to prevail in the plain parts of the country.
It urged the farmers of plain areas to step up their efforts and take timely measurements to protect their grain, vegetables and fruits crops. “Due to further drop of night temperatures, especially farmers of upper & central areas are advised to protect their crops, vegetables, fruits etc from the frost,” it maintained. Farmers may irrigate their crops as per need keeping in view the changing weather conditions in most agricultural plain areas in the next 10 days, the office advised.
It said wheat crop is in shooting/heading/flowering development stages in most agricultural plains. “But in few areas wheat crop is in tillering/shooting stage,” it added. The forecaster said the farmers should speed up eradicating weeds in the standing wheat crop to spare the existing land moisture for a better yield. It suggested the farmers could either use weedicides or manually remove the growing weeds from the standing crops.
There are chances of isolated light rain in the north Punjab from night of January 22 till January 23 and from January 28 to January 29 in upper parts of the province, the met office said. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, it forecast isolated light rain/light snow in the upper parts of the province on January 22 and 23, and on January 28 and 29. There are chances of isolated light rain in Northern Balochistan on January 27 and 28, it said.
