With cold wave sweeping across North India, ground frost has caused damage to potato and tomato crops in certain parts of Punjab and Haryana, which may adversely impact yield of vegetable crops, experts said today.

Freezing weather conditions have been prevailing in Punjab and Haryana with minimum temperatures remaining below normal by several notches. The meteorological department has again issued warnings of ground frost during the next two days.

"The Potato crop in certain parts of the potato growing belt in Punjab has been damaged because of ground frost which occurred in various areas in northern region. It will certainly impact crop yields," according to Punjab Horticulture Director L S Brar. "At this point in time, the crop normally increases, but now the frost has eliminated that possibility," he said.

Potato growers pointed out that about 10-15 percent of the potato crop sown in the state was affected due to ground frost.

"The impact of the frost has been visible on seed potato crop which covers a major portion of the sowing at this stage," said Jalandhar based leading potato grower Sukhjit Singh Bhatti. "We expect there will be a loss of about 10-15 percent in overall yield of the potato crop."

Ground frost has taken a toll on tomato crop in neighbouring state Haryana with crop being completely damaged in certain tracts of land. Tomato crops make up around 20,000 hectares of land in the region.

Source - http://www.freshplaza.com/