Discounting fears that high temperature across key wheat-growing regions of the country since the first week of this month could impact the standing crop, a senior official with the ministry of agriculture on Sunday said production is not likely to be adversely impacted, as harvesting have been completed in most places. He expressed the hope that production this year is likely to be around 82 million tonne.

SS Singh, project director, directorate of wheat research, a Karnal-based body under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, said, despite unusually high temperature prevailing, the night temperature had been ?normal? in the key wheat-growing regions. Besides due to steps taken to control yellow rust, ?there had been no report of the disease this year?, which would eventually contribute to a record production.

Singh said harvesting has almost been completed in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and portions of Haryana and Punjab by last week of March, which was prior to intense heat wave condition.

?Last year, despite warm temperature during November ? December, we could achieve more than 80 million tonne of production. This year, with no signs of yellow rust and cold climate during the germination period, there is every possibility of exceeding the target,? Singh told FE.

He said, intense cold condition prevailing in December ? January helped control the disease, which had adversely impacted yield in parts of Punjab last year.

The directorate of wheat research since July last year directed farmers in lower foothills of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and

Jammu & Kashmir not to grow widely used PBW 343 wheat varieties in order to prevent the spread of yellow rust disease, which originates in hills.

Yellow rust, also known as wheat rust, impacts the plants, cutting down yield by as much as 50%. More than 10 million hectare has been put under wheat cultivation during this rabi season in northern states such as Punjab, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

According to agriculture ministry official, close to 9 million hectare in eastern India has been brought under wheat cultivation, which would contribute significantly to the overall production. In central and western India, more than 7 million hectare has been brought under wheat cultivation.

According to date released by ministry of agriculture recently, area under wheat cultivation has marginally increased to 27.81 million hectare from 27.5 million hectare last year.

The country has already witnessed a significant jump in wheat production in the last two years. Wheat production last year was around 80.58 million while output was 78.59 million tonne in 2007-8.

Meanwhile, with the state-owned Food Corporation of India (FCI) and state government owned agencies gearing up to purchase the bumper harvest this year, officials have expressed the fear that agencies could face substantial shortage of space for keeping food grains. ?There is a substantial shortfall in storage space mainly because states have not made significant investment in enhancing storage capacities,? Siraj Hussain, chairman and managing director of FCI, said last week.

Hussain also said that in order to deal with the space , FCI has hired 3 lakh tonne of space from Central Warehousing Corporation and will likely take another 2 lakh tonne space for storing the huge wheat crop for which procurement is in full swing.

According to ministry of agriculture data, FCI and state agencies have lifted close to 10 million tonne of wheat during current rabi season till end of last week.