Good soil moisture to ensure bumper wheat output: IARI

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

Related Articles

Crude palm oil remains up on demand expectationsCardamom marginally up on spot demandCrude palm oil futures remain up on positive globa...Zinc marginally up on short-covering, global cues

New Delhi: Despite slow start to wheat sowing for 2009-10 crop season, largely due to delayed kharif harvest, agricultural scientists are confident of a bumper production mainly due to adequate soil moisture.

According to HS Gupta, director, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), late monsoon rains in many wheat growing areas of northern India few months back has improved soil moisture and made it conducive for wheat sowing.

“With adequate soil moisture we should be gearing up for another bumper wheat production this year,” Gupta on Monday said at the sideline of an IARI event. He said that the government’s 2009-10 wheat output target of 82 million tonne will be easily achieved if weather remains conducive.

This optimism from a senior official of a premier agricultural research institute comes at a time when the government is mulling measures to offset the losses incurred during kharif rice production because of drought condition in many parts of the country. The governments own first advance estimate of food production estimated a 15 million tonne drop in kharif rice production this year.

Meanwhile, data released last week by ministry of agriculture on rabi sowing showed that wheat acreage has declined to 25.70 lakh hectare till last week, down from 28.39 lakh hectare achieved during the same period last year. Gupta of IARI said that acreage would increase during next two weeks as paddy crop in the biggest wheat producing states of Punjab and Haryana have been harvested.

The country has already witnessed a significant jump in wheat production during last two years.

Wheat production last year was estimated to be around 80.58 million while it was 78.59 million tonne during 2007-8.

Recently union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar had said that acreage under wheat will be increased by 0.5 million hectares and set an additional production target of 2 million tonne.