As the temperature continues to drop further, farmers of upper parts of the country are advised to take steps to protect their crops from winter frost, the met office has said. The met office in its 10-day advisory, urged growers to keep their crop conditions in view as the temperature is set to reduce further in coming days of winter. It stressed on protection of crops from the seasonal frost that could damage the yield.

It said the farmers should remove weeds to utilise the field's moisture for their standing crops. "However weedicides should be used or manually all type of weeds should be removed from the standing crops," the office suggested. It said that the wheat crop has reached the third leaf/tillering development stage in most of the agricultural plains of the country. "But in a few areas the wheat crop is in its emergence stage," it added.

The met office said that farmers may irrigate the wheat crop as per requirement keeping the weather conditions of most parts of the agricultural plains in view. Mainly dry weather is expected in most parts of the country including Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan till December 31, it predicted.

There are isolated chances of light rain in Rawalpindi divisions on December 28. While, light rain (with snowfall over hills) may hit Malakand division on December 23 and upper parts of Khyber Pakhunkhwa on December 27, 28 "occasionally", it said. The office forecast isolated light rain/snow which may occur occasionally in Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir on December 23rd and at scattered places from December 26 to De 28.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2012