LAHORE: Riding the wave of favourable weather conditions, Punjab claims to have achieved its wheat sowing target of 16.5 million acres as expected, by mid-December.

According to department officials, since average temperature is still hovering around 15 degree Celsius, the germination is quick and better generating early optimism about the crop`s future. The second factor, which helped the crop, is drop in DAP prices.

But farmers think that it was lack of any alternative, which has always favoured the wheat crop. `It is in fact the easiest and cheapest crop to grow,` says Abad Khan of the Farmers Associates of Pakistan.

One can simply take wheat from home, throw it in the held and crop starts.

Compare it with maize for that matter, where you need to invest around Rs8,000 for the seed to begin with and a long list of actions application of fertiliser and weedicides starts immediately, costing money at each stage. That is what favours the wheat crop every season. That is why farmers always end up with wheat crop, whether weather favours it or not.

Variables like weather and DAP prices do matter, but not decisively. What matters is wheat is required for food security and it is the easiest one to grow with no initial investment, he maintains.

`The germination has sofar been better, but there are two uncertainties about the wheat crop: next foggy spell and prices of Urea,` says Muhammad Ramzan of Okara.

The meteorological officials have predicted two weeks of fog, starting from third week of December.

How it impacts the germination of the late sown crop remains to be seen. Secondly, the Urea prices have not come down. It is still being sold at Rs2,000 per bag in most parts of the country.

Though DAP prices did come down, there is still debate aboutthereasonsbehindthe fall; whether it was official subsidypackage thatpushed the prices down or it was farmers inability to purchase it, scaring importers and manufacturers to throw it out. But Urea prices have refused to come down because the government did not withdraw hike in gas rates. In fact, the government is increasing the gas rates further from January, which may take the prices further up. Both these factors would restrict Urea application on the crop and ultimately hit the yield; how much, it remains to be seen, he says.

The agriculture ofñeials, conceding high Urea prices and its possible impact on the final yield, say that the current problem for the crop is weeds and the department is running a full-fledged campaign to control them, issuing advisories and pushing farmers to look after their fields.

Punjab had sown 16.3 million acres by Dec 12 when last data was compiled. It was an improvement of two percentoverthelastyearby that date. Another four days have passed and the sowing should have been complete by now, but weekly data would only reflect it next week, they claim.