'Baharia' maize cultivation must be started immediately.

FAISALABAD -- The agriculture experts have advised growers to start cultivation of 'Baharia' maize crop immediately and complete it by end of February for getting bumper crop.

According to a spokesman for Agriculture (Extension) Department, farmers should prefer approved and hybrid varieties of maize for 'Baharia' cultivation so that they could get maximum financial benefits of their crops. Among approved varieties of maize included YH-1898, FH-988, FH-1046, YH-5427, YH-5482, Gohar-19, Sahiwal Gold, Sumit Pop, Pop-1, Sweet-1 and Malka-2016.

He said that maize was an important crop of Pakistan, which played a pivotal role in catering to domestic food requirements whereas it could also help the growers to mitigate their financial constraints due to its attractive market value.

He said that the growers should use latest technologies to cultivate and harvest maize as manual way of cultivation was causing wastage of hard labor as well as increase input cost. Due to the latest techniques, the farmers could obtain 100-120 maund per acre yield of their maize crops easily if they used latest cultivation techniques. Therefore, they should...