Amid light rain showers cloudy conditions hit different part of this region on Sunday. The prevailing weather conditions also brought down the atmospheric temperature in the hilly as well as Terai areas of the hill State keeping the minimum temperature below 10 degrees Celsius. Though people have welcomed the sudden change in the weather conditions after a fortnight or so as it helped bring down the soaring temperature, it was not a welcome development for the farmers across the region as the deteriorating weather conditions have only given rise to occurrence of disease like ‘yellow rust’ in Rabi crops like wheat.
There are three kinds of rust disease like yellow rust, black rust and brown rust. But Rabi crops like wheat are the most vulnerable to yellow rust during this period when the wheat crop is found at the ripening stage, as the agriculture experts here maintain. More so, increasing level of humidity in the atmosphere as caused by the prevailing rainy conditions has only worsened the situation for the Rabi crops. So the experts have advised the farmers to take necessary measures to protect their crops from these diseases. The agriculture exerts have also advised the farmers to conduct regular inspections of their crops and take measures accordingly to protect the Rabi crops from diseases like yellow rust.
Mention worthy, Uttarakhand’s Terai belt comprising different parts of Udham Singh Nagar including Bazpur, Gadarpur, Dineshpur, Rudrapur, Kichha, Sitarganj and Khatimab and some parts of the Nainital district particularly the Haldwani, Kotabagh and Ramnagar, are the major wheat producers. More so, the rain showers also caused water-logging as usual in many roads particularly in urban areas like the Haldwani city, hitting the vehicular traffic. Some of the roads particularly, the Haldwani -Ramnagar Road, the Haldwani- Nainital Road to name a few were the worst affected due to water logging.