The prevailing spell of dry weather is delaying wheat cultivation in arid areas of the country particularly in Potohar region while hospitals and medical practitioners are receiving more patients of weather related diseases. According to agriculture experts and local formers the cultivation of wheat crop has to be competed before November 15 in the arid areas of the Potohar region but presently the atmosphere is not conducive for it.
There is absolutely no moisture for sowing of wheat and the community will have to wait for a wet spell in the near future, said a farmer. He said that wheat cultivation was an expensive process and down trodden farmers could not afford to waste their hard-earned money in the prevailing conditions. There was no moisture in the soil and any attempt to cultivate wheat crop was just like throwing the seed and fertiliser in dark, said another farmer.
Some farmers in the area who sowed wheat a fortnight before by using the marginal level of moisture present at that time are anxiously waiting for rain because the freshly grown delicate seedlings of the crop are withering away due to persisting dry weather. On the other hand, the ongoing dry weather spell is creating health problems and there is rush of patients at hospitals and clinics in the area.
A private medical practitioner said that around 90 percent of the patients he received every day were suffering from weather related diseases. Nasal, throat and asthmatic disorders are some major affects of dry weather of which most of the patients complain in the prevailing conditions, he said. He said the situation would get normal only when there was a wet spell adding however treatment for all above disorders was available.