Better wheat crops this year,26 million tons.

[Safriz]

Due to favourable conditions the wheat production in Pakistan this year would be around 26.346million tons, with an increase of about 2.316 million tons over last year, says crop situation report for March 2013 of Pakistan Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco). The report released in Pak-SCMS Bulletin says the principal time for harvest operations of wheat crop in Pakistan start mainly in early March from Thar region of Sindh and gradually moves upcountry, touching Peshawar Valley of KP in mid May. As a consequence, the season in main wheat growing areas stretching over 1200 km between Umerkot and Peshawar is spread over around 80 days; almost 10 - 20 km progressive upward movement each harvesting day. The weather situation during last Rabi season (2011-12) was generally lean. The adverse effects were further intensified by low ambient temperatures, leading to cold wave on 7th-8th February 2012. This environmental situation led to stunting of wheat crop until end February 2012. The Rabi 2012-13 has been a ‘wet season’, receiving 11 rains, geographically distributed and temporally widespread between December 2012 to March 2013. The obligatory regime of favourable temperatures responsible to set in motion the physiological process of cell division and plant growth fall in between 40 Celsius to 370 Celsius. The number of days with in this range during December 2012 to March 2013 was copiously higher than last year. These approving factors provided an almost stress free, soil moisture environment, and optimal temperature conditions, conducive for growth of crops. The wheat crop estimates 2012-13 have been worked by SUPARCO at area 9.170 million hectare (ha), yield 2873 kg per ha and production 26.346 million tons. This is an increase of about 2.316 million tons over last year. The Suparco report about the cotton crop 2013-14, says the cotton crop targets for the year 2013-14 have been fixed by the Federal Committee on Cotton (FCC) in the Ministry of Textile at area 3.11 million ha, yield 771kg/ha and production 14.11million bales. As per report of National Fertilizer Development Centre (NFDC), the fertilizer nutrient off take between October 2012 to February 2013 was about 1717 thousand tons, which increased by 7.5 percent compared with same time frame of last Rabi. Nitrogen off take increased by 3.6 percent, Phosphate increased by 24.8 percent in product terms. Urea off take was about 2450 thousand tons which slightly decreased by 0.1 percent, where as DAP off take was 636 thousand tons, showing an increase of 23.3 percent over same time frame of previous Rabi season. Total available DAP during Kharif 2013 would be about 593 thousand tons including 228 thousand tons of opening inventory and 365 thousand tons of domestic production. The estimated off take would be 600 thousand tons. Thus there would be decrease of around 7 thousand tons of DAP to be covered through imports of DAP by private sector. In methodology for crop monitoring, Suparco uses satellite imagery of different resolution for various activities as crop forecasting and estimation and monitoring of natural disasters, as floods, drought and others. SPOT VGT with a regional scale resolution of 1000 km maps the whole country on daily basis. It is mainly used to gauge crop yields. The MODIS (250 m) sensor provides medium resolution satellite data, and is used for recurrent, fast track estimation of changes in land cover features especially during floods, drought and other vulnerabilities. The SPOT 5 has a multispectral resolution of 2.5, 5 and 10m. It is used to fine tune area under crops and also conduct final /detailed studies. To improve upon the estimations made by MODIS and also for disaster monitoring Suparco, the National Space Agency of Pakistan, has developed algorithms, techniques and procedures for fast track release of reliable and reproducible information on agriculture. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/asianet/130410/26346mn-tons-wheat- production-expected-year