Also, the unprecedented chilly weather has little impact on other Rabi crops, including rapeseed, mustard, castor, fennel, cumin and gram. A large number of farmers, particularly those who switched over from cotton to wheat crop this season, stand to benefit from the persisting cold wave conditions.

“Thanks to the prevailing severe cold conditions in the state, this year we expect the wheat production to cross the 35-lakh-metric tonne (mt) mark as compared to the 30 lakh metric tonne in the previous Rabi season,” said Dr R A Sherasia, Director of Agriculture.

Dr Sherasia told The Indian Express on Friday that though cumin crop was marginally damaged by the “blight” disease due to overcast conditions that preceded the chilly weather, the other short-term Rabi crops have remained unaffected. Cumin is mainly cultivated in north Gujarat and Surendranagar, Rajkot and Amreli districts in the Saurashtra region.

As compared to the wheat farming in about 12 lakh hectares of land in the last season, its cultivation was reported in over 14 lakh hectares this year. Among the main districts where the wheat cultivation was reported included Junagadh (over 1.98 lakh hectares), Sabarkantha (1.35 lakh he), Rajkot (one lakh he), Ahmedabad (98,000 he), Banaskantha (86,000 he), Kheda (78,000 he), Mehsana (69,000 he) and Dahod (62,000 he).

A note prepared by the State Agriculture Directorate suggests that farmers have cultivated cumin in over 2.65 lakh hectares of land this season, as against 2.51 lakh hectares the previous year. Similarly, the average areas for fennel cultivation has also increased from 20,000 hectares in the last Rabi to over 27,000 hectares this season. There is a marked increase reported in the cultivation of other winter crops such as gram, rapeseed, castor, isabgol and maize across the state.

A senior agriculture official said that most of the Rabi crops, barring wheat, would have suffered heavy damages, if the current weather conditions had been accompanied by hailstorm. And had there been frost conditions in the state, it would have certainly inflicted the “freezing injuries” to plants and thus perished their cells.