Section 04 · Weather
Spray, irrigate or wait?
Find your village to see the next 7 days and what they mean for spraying, irrigation, fertiliser and frost. Below it is a guide to the winter weather that hurts rabi crops.
Your place goes only to Open-Meteo, to fetch the forecast. This phone remembers it for next time.
Rainy day: 2.5 mm of rain or more (IMD). Cold wave: a minimum of 4 °C or below, severe at 2 °C or below. These are IMD's limits for the plains; the hills have their own.
Forecast by Open-Meteo.com, from weather models (CC BY 4.0). It is not IMD's official forecast: for warnings, check IMD. Open-Meteo.com
Source: India Meteorological Department, Pune, Glossary (read 14 November 2026), Rainy day, PDF p. 4
Guide
Winter weather and your crop
Frost and cold waves
- IMD declares a cold wave in the plains when the minimum temperature falls to 4 °C or below, and a severe cold wave at 2 °C or below.
- Plants suffer chilling injury between 2 °C and 0 °C, and freezing injury below 0 °C. Flowers, pods and seedlings are hurt most.
- Frost comes on still nights: NDMA's frost warning is for air below 0 °C with wind under 16 km/h.
- When frost threatens, give a light irrigation: moist soil stays warmer. PAU advises it for wheat, and for raya it says the second irrigation may be needed earlier.
- A mulch of straw or other local material slows the cooling of the soil, and a cover over the nursery protects young seedlings.
Rain
- IMD counts a day as rainy when 2.5 mm of rain or more falls.
- Wheat: for each cm of rain, move the next irrigation 5 days later up to the end of January, and 2 days later after that.
- Wheat: if rain delays the second irrigation, broadcast the second urea dose at 55 days after sowing anyway. If water is standing in the field then, don't broadcast it: PAU gives two sprays of 7.5 % urea solution (15 kg urea in 200 litres of water per acre) at 42 and 54 days after sowing instead.
- Gram: never give its one irrigation earlier than 4 weeks after sowing, and delay it if early rain comes. Heavy rain soon after sowing or at flowering, and hail at ripening, cause heavy losses.
Heat while wheat grain fills
- PAU: wheat yields best when the day's maximum stays at 15–22 °C while the crop grows and 21–28 °C while the grain develops, with minimums of 4–11 °C and 7–13 °C.
- Heat during grain filling ripens the crop early and the grains stay light.
- Depending on rain, keep irrigating timely-sown wheat up to the end of March against unusual heat; wheat sown after 5 December, up to 10 April.
- PAU's sprays against heat at grain filling: two sprays of 2 % potassium nitrate (13:0:45), 4 kg in 200 litres of water per acre, at boot leaf and at flowering; or two sprays of salicylic acid, 15 g dissolved in 450 mL of ethyl alcohol, in 200 litres of water per acre, at boot leaf and early milk stage.
Wind
- Don't irrigate wheat on a windy day: the wet, heavy crop falls over.
- Spray only on clear, calm days, and never across the direction of the wind.
Weather that brings pests and disease
- Yellow rust of wheat: nights of 7–13 °C with 85–100 % humidity and days of 15–24 °C suit it, and frequent rain with wind in February–March makes it worse. Check the crop from the second week of December, especially after rain or irrigation.
- Mustard aphid: cold, cloudy weather suits it. It usually turns serious around mid-January, so watch from the first week of January.
- Gram blight (Ascochyta): about 20 °C, humidity above 85 % and cloudy weather with on-and-off rain suit it. In very wet weather it can kill a whole crop fast.