Jhenidah, Dec 25: The bone chilling cold wind and excessive foggy weather affect Boro seedbeds in the district of Jhenidah. All over the country, activities turned slower for the severe cold wave and the district also facing the same fate from the very beginning of the season, winter. Nonstop cold wave and dense fog for over last 10 days started affecting vegetables, crops and Boro seedbed massively. The farmers passing their days in tension and thinking about the next agricultural produces as some of their seedbeds have already been damaged. For making seedbed the farmers bought seeds at a very high price from the local market, when they have already paid a big amount to count as loss in last season’s production of Aman paddy, potato, jute, vegetables and other crops. Experts said to The Independent that due to lack of adequate sunshine during the day, photosynthetic activities of plants were adversely affected and the rate respiration increased greatly that reduces the yield of the respective crops. The plants like guava, sweet potato, banana, papaya along with other winter-related fruits were sensitive to low temperature as well as foggy weather. However, the experts advised to prepare seedbeds protected by polythene covers. The district weather department said due to the fog in the district the minimum temperature came down considerably between 9.2-9.5 degrees Celsius but the maximum temperature went down 15-16 degrees Celsius. They also added last three days of the running month and first three days of the next month may be covered again by extreme cold and dense fog. The District Agriculture Extensive Department (DAED) sources said to this correspondent, this year around ninety thousand hectares of land used for Boro cultivation in the whole district. Seedbeds already been made for about four thousand hectares of land for reaching the next target. But for cold and dense foggy weather the average little plants of seedbed got crinkled and red coloured. The whole Jhenidah district including six upazilas named Shoilkupa, Harinakundu, Moheshpur, Kotchandpur, Kaliganj and Sadar upazilas’ average newly made seedbeds were affected by the cold weather. Farmer Tarikul Islam of Sadar upazila and Ashraf Ali of Shoilkupa upazila said the next Boro production target must be hampered for the extreme cold. They added their seedbeds’ plants dried and got red coloured by unbearable cold. Shahnewaz, another farmer of Moheshpur upazila said, he bought seeds at high price but average plants in the seedbeds have been destroyed for the climate. Bidhan Chandra, officer AED of Jhenidah district said, farmers made sufficient seedbeds for achieving the next Boro cultivation target but if average seedbeds go waste for weather then achieving the target will fail. Farmers of the district are using various things including net fog medicine to protect their cropland from dense fog and biting cold. If the next coming days’ weather turns favorable, the farmers of the district shall be able to come out from the running problem. (Source: theindependent, Wednesday, 26 December 2012)