LAHORE, Oct 23: The Punjab Seed Corporation on Tuesday finalized arrangements for providing 1.7 million maunds of certified wheat seed to the farmers.
The quantity is in addition to 500,000 maunds of seed prepared by private companies and the Agriculture Department’s seed improvement plans.
The PSC would supply eight varieties of seed through its stores and over 1,000 designated dealers throughout the Punjab.
A PSC official said wheat was sown on around 15 million acres. He said a maund of seed was required for every acre. He said around 85 per cent of small farmers — owning seven to 12 acres — could not afford to buy certified seed. Even medium size farmers, he said, avoided it on account of the high cost. This, he said, left only large farms as potential users of certified seed. The overall replacement ratio, he said, did not exceed 20 per cent. Around 3 million maunds of seed is, therefore, required to meet the replacement needs. The PSC is supposed to provide about 50 per cent of the requirement. The rest is provided by 370 private companies, including five multi-nationals.
He said the private companies had reportedly been unable to develop the required quantity of seed. For its part, the PSC had developed more than its share.
The Agriculture Department has provided seed graders at its all 70 centres in the province who would sift healthy seed and help improve the yield. A department official claimed that the seed grader experiment had proved beneficial last year when more than 272,000 maunds of seed was graded. This year, he said, the department hoped to help refine around one million maunds of wheat seed at a cost of Re1 per 40 kg.
A PSC official recommended MH-97 and Chenab-2000 varieties of wheat for irrigated areas of central and southern Punjab. He recommended sowing from Oct 25 to Nov 30. Uqab-2000 variety was recommended for central and southern Punjab for sowing from Nov 1 to Dec 15. Punjab-96 could be sown throughout the irrigated areas of the Punjab from Nov 1 to Nov 30 and Inqilab-91 from Nov 1 to Dec 15. Iqbal-2000, he said, could also be sown all irrigated areas of the province from Nov 15 to Dec 15.
He said 50 kg per acre would suffice if sowing was completed by Nov 15. In case of sowing between Nov 15 and Nov 30 the ratio should be increased to 60 kg per acre. From Dec 1 onwards, at least 70 kg per acre seed should be sown. Another five kilograms seed should be added per acre if the farmer used broadcast method.