Punjab - Farmers Grapple with Crop Damage and Harvesting Challenges after Heavy Rainfall

Unusual rainfall and erratic winds have caused lodging in the wheat fields in Punjab. A total of 34.89 acres, or roughly 13.45 lakh hectares, were thought to be dedicated to growing wheat.

According to reports, the lodging of wheat in the current rabi season ranges from 20 to 33% on 713,685 hectares, 35 to 75% on 585,634 hectares, and from 75 to 100% on 45,309 hectares. Production and financial losses have been a result of the severe repercussions. The remaining crops that can yield well and offer them ambush benefits are of far greater concern to farmers. In fact, how much they can create via physical labor or combines is what means the most to them in the current situation.

Additionally, the crops were in the grain-filling stage and needed to be cultivated starting the first week of April. But untimely rains that occurred from March 17 to April 3 have heavily impacted these wheat crops. It will be very difficult to take out the grain from lodged wheat crops. Infact it will be difficult for combines to harvest grains.

The top 7-8 inches of a typical wheat crop, which is 3 to 3.5 feet tall, are harvested by a combine. However, picking closer to the ground will be necessary to remove the stuck plants, which results in a loss of straw. It entails significantly less bhusa, a dry fodder for our livestock, which costs Rs 7-8/kg, according to farmer Bhupinder Singh of Longowal village in the Sangrur district.

He has made the decision to manually harvest the entire crop on his four acres, 25% of which have lodged. He explained, "The combine cannot harvest the grain from my crop that is lying flat on the field because it must operate at least half a foot above the ground."

For harvesting and threshing, manual work will be more expensive at Rs. 4,500/acre and Rs. 3,000/acre, respectively, separating grain from the straw. Contrast this to combines, which harvest and thresh the grain in one motion, at a cost of Rs 2,000–2,200 per acre.

Farmer Kuldeep Singh of the Sangrur Sunam tehsil's Ugrahan hamlet is aware that a combine can only harvest half of the grains on his four acres of wheat, which has 40% lodging.

Additionally, instead of the usual two trolleys of bhusa per acre, he would only be able to harvest one trolley (8 quintals) of the crop: "But I cannot afford to pay so much for physical labor. Even if the combines provide less grain and bhusa this time, I am forced to rely on them.

Although the increased grain and straw recovery from lodged crops is enough to warrant a return to manual harvesting, the high cost and labor shortage may still compel farmers to use combines. In essence, it indicates that not all of the wheat crop that was planted in the field would be gathered and sold.

According to Harmail Singh, owner of a combine harvester from Sunam, they typically cut stubble in half from above to collect wheat grain, but in the case of a flat crop, they must cut around the entire straw at a height of about 6 inches above the ground.

Only six inches can be cut with our blades above the surface. Our machinery cannot take up the grains below that level, which could lead to a 30–40% harvest loss.

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