Climate change makes the cold more severe in the month of Magh. Even so, farmers are busy ensuring the food supply, as this is the busiest time for farm work. Here is what to do to care for boro rice and wheat in Magh.

Urea should be applied as a top dressing: the first instalment 15-20 days after transplanting, the second after 30-40 days and the last after 50-55 days.

Boro rice needs regular irrigation, weeding, pest management and other care. Integrated pest management can be used to protect the plants from disease and insects: clean cultivation, intercultural operations, mechanical control, conserving beneficial insects, planting branches in the field as bird perches, and light traps can keep the paddy field free of pests.

If disease and pest attacks cannot be stopped this way, then as a last resort the right pesticide should be applied at the right time and in the right dose on expert advice.

Where wheat seedlings are too dense, they should be thinned. If the wheat plants have started to form ears or are 55-60 days old, the field urgently needs irrigation, which will raise the yield. For a good harvest, irrigate once more at grain formation.

Rat control in wheat fields must be done by everyone together; otherwise yields may suffer badly.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.