Farmers are concerned about spring maize that uses a lot of water

Experts in agriculture are concerned about the significant increase in the area under the water-guzzling spring corn.

The crop was planted on 9,000 hectares in the Jalandhar area in 2020–21; by the previous year, that number had risen to almost 25,000 hectares. 17,000 hectares of the crop have been planted so far this year. Officials from the Agriculture Department anticipate that there will be more crop land this year than there was last.

Similar circumstances exist in Kapurthala as well. At the PAU Agriculture College’s construction dedication, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said that the government urged people to switch from growing rice to other crops since it was exhausting subsurface water. Reason: excellent pricing and higher yield per acre.

According to the information, one acre yields around forty quintals of crops. The Punjab Agricultural University and the Agriculture Department advise against planting this crop due to its high water requirements.

In the Dona and Shahkot regions of Kapurthala and Jalandhar, several farmers who had previously grown muskmelon have now converted to cultivating spring corn in their fields, reducing the amount of land planted with muskmelon.

Amar Singh, a farmer from Shahkot, told The Tribune earlier in the day that he had cut the amount of land planted to muskmelon from 50 acres to fewer than 10 acres due to a decline in profit during the previous few years.

Principal Maize Breeder of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Dr. Surinder Sandhu, said that the circumstances remained unchanged this year. “The practice of planting maize after wheat is disastrous because farmers irrigate their fields every third day. As with paddy, this will wreak devastation. Interestingly, farmers in the dark zone areas are also doing the same thing, as she had previously said.