The Met Office on Monday asked the farmers to take steps to help protect their standing crops and orchards from extreme weather impacts. In a 10-day weather outlook for growers, it also said that the farmers of lower half the country should irrigate regularly their Kharif crops keeping in view the continuing weather conditions. Besides, rice growers should sow the crop's sampling in accordance with the agricultural experts' recommendations.
"Measures may be taken to preserve the standing crops/orchids from the damaging impacts of extreme weather conditions like thunder/dust storm, gusty winds, hails etc in particular areas," it said, adding that fields got fallow after the harvesting of wheat may be deeply ploughed and leave empty for a few weeks for the next crops.
Day and nighttime temperature are likely to remain above normal in the agriculture plains in the next 10 days. Strong winds are expected in Balochistan, Sindh and southern Punjab during the start of June. Punjab: Mainly hot and dry weather is expected in central/southern Punjab. However, dust-thunderstorm-rain is expected at isolated places in Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Gujranwala, Lahore divisions and Islamabad during the first half of the current decade.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: Dust-thunderstorm-rain is expected at isolated places of Malakand, Hazara, Peshawar, Mardan, Kohat divisions during the first half of the current decade. Very hot and dry weather is expected in Sindh and Balochistan. Dust-thunderstorm/rain is expected at scattered places in Gilgit-Balochistan and Kashmir until June 10.