An official from Agronomic Research Station Khanewal has warned farmers that Rabi crops may have to endure high temperatures in the coming days and urged them to take extra care of their wheat and canola crops in the most important Feb-ruary-March duration. In a statement issued here Wednesday, Dr. Asmatullah Malik said that Febru-ary and March were the most important months for Rabi crops and the forecast of high temperatures with dry weather conditions should serve as a warn-ing and asked farmers to do crop inspection on a daily basis during this period.
He advised farmers not to let crop water stressed and apply water when crop needed it. He also ad-vised them to complete application of Nitrogenous fertilizers on wheat crop as early as possible. Dr. Asmatullah said that wheat was sown on 480,000 acre area in Khanewal district that was some 9-10 per cent below the acreage recorded previous occa-sion.
He attributed wheat area reduction to increase in oilseed crops cultivation saying that 50,000 acre area was brought under oilseed cultivation this year in Khanewal, some 300 per cent more than last year.
He said that increase in oilseed crop area was also good for national food production and asked farmers to give extra attention to their wheat crop to get enhanced per acre production from wheat fields for compensation against the wheat area lost.—APP
