Met experts at Punjab Agricultural University say usually two to three days of frost is reported in January, which witnesses a long spell of fog.

However, with the temperature dipping below zero degrees frequently, 2008 started on a frosty note in Punjab.

Experts, forecasting that frost will continue for at least the next 48 hours, say while the present weather conditions are favourable for crops like wheat and oilseeds, vegetable crops, like peas and potato, maize and sugarcane will suffer.

Farmers have been advised by the agronomists to apply light irrigation to their fields. Dr G S Bains, head of the Department of Agricultural Agrometrology, Punjab Agricultural University, says, “The normal minimum temperature for January is 5.1 degrees Celsius, but this year we have recorded 2.6, 0.2, 0.8, 2.4 degrees on January 1, 2, 3 and 20, respectively. The mercury dipped further to minus 1 degree yesterday and today, when the gross minimum temperature on the soil surface remained as low as minus 4 and minus 5 degrees.”

The weather conditions have increased worries of potato growers. “When we had some rainfall in the second week of January, we thought the frost spell will end. However, this second spell of frost has hit us badly,” says Balbir Singh, a farmer from Nahal Khotte village in Moga district who has sown potatoes over 100 acres and claims that nearly 70 per cent of his crop has been damaged by frost.