LAHORE: Early wheat sowing has gained momentum across Punjab during the first half of November, a contrast to previous years when cultivation typically peaked later and often spilled into December-January.
This accelerated pace, deemed a welcome development by the Punjab agriculture department, has resulted in sowing being completed on 13.4 million acres by November 20, against the targeted 16.5 million acres. An official from the department expressed confidence that the remaining target would be met, which is a prerequisite for achieving a good harvest.
Several factors have contributed to this shift towards earlier planting. In flood-affected areas, for instance, the late recession of water prevented the planting of oilseed crops, prompting farmers to opt for wheat instead. Strong forecasts of an early and intense winter motivated farmers to sow earlier, as germination rates slow significantly in lower temperatures.
Finally, the indicative price of Rs3,500 for wheat, combined with current high market prices for both wheat and wheat straw, has created an attractive window for farmers who anticipate favourable commodity prices at harvest time.
The latest trend seems to be a shift to the decades-old trend of predominantly wheat sowing in November, which has been of steady and deliberate decline lately. What was once the standard practice lately started to increasingly be agronomically sub-optimal practice due to warmer Novembers caused by climate change. Moreover, the practical necessity of the rice-wheat and cotton–sugarcane-wheat cropping cycles also resulted in late wheat sowing. Keeping in view of these factors, official sowing policy changes, advocating for a mid-November to mid-December sowing window.
Therefore, the key metric was no longer ‘November sowing’ but rather the percentage of the crop sown within the officially recommended window of November 15-December 15, which has become the new benchmark for a recommended planting season.
Explaining the wheat sowing pattern, an official said, sowing In traditional norms said to be prevalent in the pre-2000s, where ideal sowing window for wheat in Punjab was from late October to mid-November. This was considered agronomically optimal, allowing the crop to establish itself before the peak winter and mature before the intense heat of May.
However, the recent practice has pointed towards a dramatic decline in the area sown in earlier weeks of November. Now, the vast majority of wheat sowing in Punjab takes place in late November and December. In many districts, sowing often spills over into early January. This was mainly due to November temperatures, which have been higher over the last two decades. Wheat is a cool-season crop; if sown in a warmer November, it undergoes excessive vegetative growth more leaves rather than the desired grain-producing growth.
Early wheat sowing in Punjab brings several benefits for harvesting a good produce, including an extended growth period that boosts yields, better water uses due to cooler November temperatures, avoidance of terminal heat stress in April-May, healthier plants with less exposure to pests and diseases and the potential for an earlier harvest, freeing up land for other crops.
Historically, Punjab contributes about 70-75 percent of the country’s total wheat production, with the province's output growing steadily over the years except last season’s dip. In 2023-24, Punjab production peaked to 24.42 million tonnes of wheat, a significant increase from 18.38 million tonnes in 2018-19. However, production reduced to 22.05 million tonnes in the year 2024-25, due to lower returns to growers owing to withdrawal of wheat support price by the provincial government.
