Wheat

Topic: Major Crops of India: Distribution and Conditions · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 4 "Agriculture"; Class 12, Ch 3 "Land Resources and Agriculture"

Meaning

Wheat is India's second most important cereal after rice. It is a temperate rabi crop (sown in winter, harvested in spring), and it is the main food crop of the north and north-west of India. It covers about 14% of India's cropped area, and India is the world's second-largest wheat producer after China [3]. Its growth now depends on early heat and on climate-resilient seeds, so it links static geography with food security and climate change.

Explanation

Growing conditions

• Temperature: wheat needs a cool growing season.

• In cool weather the plant grows leaves and tillers (side shoots) well.

• Sunshine: it needs bright sunshine at ripening.

• Warm, dry, sunny days in March–April help the grain ripen and dry.

• Rainfall: it needs 50–75 cm, spread evenly over the growing season.

• Too much rain at harvest spoils the grain.

• Winter rain from western disturbances: these are low-pressure storms. They start over the Mediterranean region and move east across West Asia into north-west India in winter.

• They bring light winter rain to Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, and snow to the Himalayas.

• This rain is a free extra watering for the rabi crop. It helps most where there is no irrigation.

• Water supply: wheat is mostly irrigated.

• It is rainfed only in the Himalayan highlands and parts of Malwa.

• Soil: wheat grows on fertile alluvial soil in the northern plains and on black soil (regur) in the Deccan. Black soil holds moisture well, so wheat can grow on water stored in the soil.

Why yields differ: irrigation and the Green Revolution

• Yield means the amount of grain produced on one hectare of land.
• Very high yields (above 4,000 kg/ha): Punjab, Haryana
• These states have assured canal and tube-well irrigation.
• Farmers use high-yielding seeds and fertiliser.

• They are the core areas of the Green Revolution.

• Moderate yields: Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar. Irrigation is only partial, farms are smaller and farmers use fewer inputs.

• Low yields: Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir. These states have large rainfed areas and hill farming.
• Green Revolution (from the mid-1960s): farmers began using high-yielding variety (HYV) seeds, irrigation and chemical fertilisers to raise food output quickly.
• The new HYV wheat seeds did best on irrigated land in Punjab, Haryana and north Rajasthan.
• Wheat earned farmers more than gram, a rainfed rabi pulse.
• So wheat displaced gram in these areas. Gram moved to the rainfed lands of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra.

Terminal heat stress: the main climate risk

• Terminal heat stress means very high heat during grain-filling. This is the last stage of growth, when starch moves into the grain.
• In north-west India, grain-filling happens in March–April.
• If temperatures rise early, the crop is forced to mature too soon.

• The result is shrivelled, lighter grains and a lower yield.

• The 2022 shock:

• An early summer and an untimely heatwave in March 2022 cut wheat yields, especially in Punjab and Haryana [6].
• The government raised the allowed limit of shrivelled grains in procurement from 6% to 18% [6].
• Wheat exports were restricted from 13 May 2022 to stop speculative trading and cool down domestic wheat and atta prices [6].

Adaptation: new seeds and zero tillage

• Heat-tolerant varieties: ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) and state agricultural universities have bred many of these [7].
• In 2021-22, DBW187 and DBW222 gave 3.6% and 5.4% more yield under heat than the older variety HD-3086 [7].

• By 2022, heat-tolerant varieties covered more than 50% of the wheat area, mostly in the North Western Plain Zone [7].

• Varietal replacement rate means how often farmers switch to new varieties.

• In 2025-26 this rate went up. More climate-resilient, disease-resistant seeds helped the crop withstand heat, and no pest or disease outbreak was reported that season [4][5].

• Zero tillage in the rice–wheat system: wheat seed is sown directly into the unploughed rice field with a special seed drill, right after the kharif rice harvest.

• Skipping ploughing saves days, so wheat is sown earlier.
• Earlier sowing means grain-filling ends before the March–April heat.
• Rice stubble does not need to be burnt, so there is less stubble-burning smog.
• Methods like this give high wheat yields and cut farmers' costs by about 20% [8].
• Nearly 50% of farm households in north-west India have adopted such methods. After the tractor, the zero-till seed drill became the most common farm machine there [8].

Where it occurs

• Two main wheat zones (NCERT Class 10): 1. Ganga–Satluj plains in the north-west: Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and north Rajasthan. 2. Black soil region of the Deccan: mainly Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

• About 85% of the wheat area (NCERT Class 12) lies in three regions:

• the Indo-Gangetic plain
• the Malwa plateau in western Madhya Pradesh

• the Himalayas, up to 2,700 m. Higher up, the season is too cold and too short for the grain to ripen.

• Leading states: Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. Class 10 also lists Bihar.

• Madhya Pradesh specialities:
• Sharbati, a premium bread wheat of the Malwa region

• durum wheat, a hard wheat used for semolina (sooji) and pasta

• Production:

• 2024-25: about 117.94 million tonnes, a record and about 4.2 million tonnes more than 2023-24 [2][3].

• 2025-26 (Third Advance Estimates): about 120.66 million tonnes, about 2.71 million tonnes more than 2024-25 [4].

• Area, Rabi 2026: about 334.17 lakh hectares, up from 328.04 lakh ha the year before. Early and timely sowing helped this rise [5].

• World: India is the second-largest producer, after China (2024-25) [3]. NCERT gives India's share of world output as 12.8% (2017).
• Map exercise (NCERT): mark these on an outline map of India:
• the Punjab–Haryana–western Uttar Pradesh plain
• north Rajasthan (the Ganganagar canal area)
• the Malwa plateau
• the black soil belt of Maharashtra
• Bihar
• the Himalayan valleys of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir

Don't confuse with

• Rice: rice is India's first cereal and a kharif crop that needs heavy rain. Wheat is the second cereal and a rabi, temperate crop that needs only 50–75 cm of rain.
• North-east monsoon rain: wheat's winter rain in north-west India comes from western disturbances, which start over the Mediterranean. It does not come from the north-east monsoon.
• Leading producer vs highest yield: Madhya Pradesh is a leading producer but has low yields because large areas are rainfed. Yields above 4,000 kg/ha are found in Punjab and Haryana.
• Gram: gram is also a rabi crop, but it is a rainfed pulse. After the Green Revolution, wheat pushed gram out of Punjab, Haryana and north Rajasthan.

Prelims Hooks

• Wheat is a rabi, temperate crop. It needs 50–75 cm of evenly spread rain and bright sunshine at ripening.
• About 85% of the wheat area lies in the Indo-Gangetic plain + Malwa plateau + Himalayas (up to 2,700 m).
• Wheat is rainfed only in the Himalayan highlands and parts of Malwa. It is irrigated almost everywhere else.
• Terminal heat stress hits wheat at the grain-filling stage in March–April. DBW187 and DBW222 are heat-tolerant wheat varieties bred by ICAR [7].
• India is the second-largest wheat producer after China. It produced about 117.94 MT in 2024-25 and about 120.66 MT in 2025-26 (Third Advance Estimates) [3][4].
• Wheat exports were restricted from 13 May 2022, after the March 2022 heatwave [6].

Mains Points

• Distribution pattern (GS-I):
• Wheat is concentrated in the north-west for four reasons: cool winters, winter rain from western disturbances, fertile alluvial soil, and dense canal and tube-well irrigation.
• The Deccan black soil belt is a second zone, where wheat grows on moisture stored in the soil.

• The yield gap between irrigated Punjab–Haryana and rainfed Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir shows how much yield depends on irrigation.

• Climate risk and adaptation (GS-III):

• A warmer March shortens grain-filling. The 2022 heatwave cut yields in Punjab and Haryana and led to export curbs and relaxed procurement norms for shrivelled grain [6].
• Heat-tolerant varieties now cover more than half of the North Western Plain Zone [7].

• Faster varietal replacement [4] and zero-till early sowing [8] help the crop finish grain-filling before the heat. Zero tillage also cuts stubble burning and costs.

• Sustainability (GS-III):

• The Green Revolution rice–wheat system pushed gram out of Punjab, Haryana and north Rajasthan. This hurt crop diversity and pulse self-sufficiency.
• The system also draws heavily on groundwater, so crop diversification is an important policy issue.

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