Punjab: Farm fires nearly 69,000, experts blame long-lived paddy varieties

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With stubble burn cases approaching the 69,000 mark this year in the Punjab, experts accuse long-lived varieties of being the cause of the increase in farm fires and also having a heavy toll on the state’s groundwater.

The districts where the longer varieties are grown are mostly those with the most thatch fires reported. Long varieties offer less time to manage stubble thanks to in-situ and ex-situ methods. 10 days.

Although the state reduced the total area of ​​long-lived varieties to just 18% in 2018, the area of ​​these crops has increased again this year and now 32.5% of the area is devoted to long-lived varieties in the country. ‘State.

According to the Punjab Department of Agriculture, there were 26.05 hectares of lakh under rice in the state, of which about 8.34 hectares of lakh were under long-lived varieties this year.

Long-lasting varieties mainly include PUSA-44, which was developed in 1993 by the PUSA Institute, New Delhi, Peeli Pusa and Dogar Pusa as both varieties are locally available to farmers.

None of these three varieties are recommended by the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), which has developed half a dozen short-lived varieties over the past decade.

“These are non-descript varieties and we never recommend them, but farmers in several districts are not willing to leave them as they are considered high yielding varieties,” said Dr Buta Singh Dhillon, agronomist (Rice ), PAU, Ludhiana, adding that these varieties last 20-25 days longer than the short varieties, which means they require 5-6 additional irrigation cycles and the yield is about two quintals more per acre than the short varieties.

Plus, more yield means more stubble, as PUSA varieties are 4-6 inches taller than short varieties and generate around 2% more stubble than shorter varieties, experts said, adding that when thousands of hectares lie under it, so even 2% more thatch comes to a huge amount.

PUSA-44 was very popular among farmers until a decade ago and was grown statewide. were reported in districts with a large area under PUSA-44.

According to the Punjab Department of Agriculture, these varieties are mainly sown in Sangrur (60 percent of the total rice area), Patiala (60 percent), Barnala (70 percent). Apart from this, the districts of Mansa, Ludhiana, Faridkot, Moga and Bathinda also contributed 50 percent, 46 percent, 44 percent, 40 percent and 30 percent of area, respectively, under PUSA-44. In Mukatsar, Fazilka also has 25 percent and 16 percent of the area under these, respectively.

Stubble burn figures are also high in these districts as Sangrur has 7,827 thatch fires, Moga (6,387), Ludhiana (5,682), Patiala (5,183), Barnala (4,283), Bathinda (4,323) , Mukatsar Sahib (4,197), Faridkot (3,856), Mansa (2,983) Fazilka (2,032) and Ferozepur (6,057).

PRSC records also revealed that fires in most of these districts did not start until the third week of October, when harvesting of the long varieties began, as until October 22 there had been no that 90 cases of stubble burn in Sangrur, which is now at the top.

To date, 76.6% of the total thatch burning incidents have occurred in these 11 districts alone and the majority of them have occurred after October 31.

Few districts opt for short varieties, but still have experienced heavy burns. These are Tarn Taran (4102) and Amritsar (2138) in the region of Majha and Jalandhar (2492) in the region of Doaba. Tarn Taran and Amritsar go into sowing vegetables at the beginning of October, because of which they set the fields on fire to avoid the delay of vegetable sowing and Jalandhar is the hub of the seed potato crops which are also sown in the October itself.

Why are the long-lived varieties to blame? PUSA -44 and Pili Pusa are 160-day and 165-day varieties, including the 30-day nursery that is transplanted to the main field. Harvesting of these long varieties begins in the third week of October and continues through the first week of November, while harvesting of short varieties begins from September and ends in the second week of October. Wheat planting begins from November 1 and about 80-85% of wheat planting ends on November 20. With longer varieties, farmers only have a week to 10 days to plant the main wheat crop in the state, which is not enough to manage stubble. Even on November 16, 1757 cases of blight were recorded and more than 85 percent of those districts with long-lasting varieties only.

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