A critical appraisal of variability in wheat yield as affected by meteorological parameters in irrigated plains of central Punjab Kaur Harleen*, Kaur Prabhjyot, Kaur Sukhjeet Department of Climate Change and Agricultural Meteorology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-141004, Punjab *Corresponding author : kaurharleen12@pau.edu
Online Published on 15 December, 2023. Abstract A study was conducted to evaluate the effect of variability in meteorological parameters, i.e. maximum (Tmax) and minimum (Tmin) temperature, sunshine hours (SShr) and rainfall (RF) during three stages of wheat, i.e. Vegetative (VG), Flowering (FL) and grain filling (GF) stage. The analysis was done for three years each with highest and lowest wheat yield amongst recent 13 years for Ludhiana station. The highest yield (5375 kg/ha) during 2011-12 was achieved with warmer temperatures (Tmax and Tmin+0.6°C above normal) due to cloudy (SShr -98hr below normal) weather during VG stage, cooler temperatures (Tmax and Tmin 0.5-1.5°C below normal) due to humid (RF+13mm above normal) and cloudy (SShr-19hr below normal) weather during FL stage and cooler temperature (Tmax-0.2°C below normal) with cloudy (SShr-68hr below normal) weather during GF stage. The lowest yield (4392 kg/ha) of wheat during 200809 was due to cumulative effect of heat stress during VG (Tmax +0.9°C and Tmin+1.2°C above normal), FL (T +2.1°C and Tmin+2.8°C above normal) and GF (T +1.5°C and Tmin+0.8°C above normal) stages coupled with cloudy weather during VG and FL stage due to SShr 96 and 11 hr lesser than normal, respectively. The study revealed that during the VG, FL and GF stage respectively of three high yield years, the favourable range of Tmax are 22.1-23.4, 17.5–20.0 and 26.0–29.5°C, Tmin are 8.3–8.9, 5.8–8.7 and 12.3– 14.9°C, SShr are 362-446, 108-191 and 543-580 hr. Top Keywords Rainfall, Sunshine hour, Temperature, Wheat, Yield. Top |