Wheat portfolio
Each one answers a different problem on the farm — getting off the field early, carrying heat through grain fill, pulling a heavy crop of bhusa, or simply making the best chapati in the village. Produced on our own land in the Terai, cleaned and graded here, and sold under our own name.
What do you need from the crop?
Off the field in 120 days, and it holds its yield through the heat.
Up to 20% more yield than 2967, on a bolder grain.
Hard, lustrous grain that takes both a timely and a late sowing.
The best chapati in the series, and the steadiest yield.
Covers the ground, smothers the weeds, and keeps the rust off.
Yield
Potential is what the variety has returned in a good year under good management. The average is what it gives across ordinary seasons — the honest number, and the one to plan on.
Quintals per hectare. The same figures are in the table below.
Side by side
| Balwan-456 | Balwan-3967+ | Balwan-303 | Balwan-989 | Balwan-787 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yield potential | 87.1 q/ha | 76.2 q/ha | 70 q/ha | 74.8 q/ha | 78 q/ha |
| Average yield | 68 q/ha | 65 q/ha | 61 q/ha | 65.3 q/ha | 67.6 q/ha |
| Duration | 120 days | 130 days | 125 days | 130 days · medium | 135 days |
| Plant height | Short · 85–95 cm | Short · 85–95 cm | Short · 85–95 cm | Medium · 95–105 cm | Medium · 95–105 cm |
| Grain | Bold | Bold — bolder than 2967 | Hard, lustrous, bold | Bold | Long, bold |
| Tillering | Good | Extreme | — | Profuse | Extreme |
| Lodging | Non-lodging | Non-lodging — strong stem | Non-lodging | Can lodge | Non-lodging |
| Disease | Resistant to rusts, smut and bunt | Resistant to rusts, smut and bunt | Resistant to rusts, smut and bunt | Resistant to rusts, smut and bunt | Resistant to rusts, smut and bunt — better rust resistance |
| Heat | Heat tolerant · HTI 0.96 | Heat tolerant | — | — | Heat tolerant |
| Chapati | Better chapati quality | — | — | Best in the series | — |
| Fodder / bhusa | — | Good for hay | — | Better for bhusa | Good for fodder |
| Sowing window | 1 November – 10 January | — | Suits both early and late sowing | 1 November – 15 December | 1 November – 10 December |
Package of practices
The standard package for a timely-sown irrigated crop in the Terai. Days are counted from sowing — shift them with your own sowing date, and take the local recommendation over anything written here.
Two or three ploughings to a fine, level tilth — wheat does not forgive a cloddy seedbed. Treat the seed before it goes in; our YieldMax treatment goes on at this stage and is where the 15–20% comes from.
Forty kilos an acre of untreated seed, or 35 with YieldMax already on it. Sow with a drill at about 5 cm — deeper and the crown roots sit wrong. Keep rows close enough that the canopy closes before the weeds get going.
The single most important irrigation of the season. Miss this one and nothing you do later gets the tillers back.
The window for Phalaris minor and the broadleaf weeds closes fast. Spray on a still morning with enough water to wet the weed, and ask the field team or your KVK which product is working in your block this season.
Second irrigation. The tillers you carry now are the ears you cut in March — which is why the profuse-tillering varieties pull ahead here.
The crop stands up and the stem elongates. Keep it watered; a check here shortens the ear before it has formed.
Walk the field for yellow and brown rust from late January. Catch it on the lower leaves and it is a small job; let it reach the flag leaf and it is not.
Grain filling. This is where heat does its damage, and where a heat-tolerant variety earns its price.
A light last irrigation only if the soil is dry. Too much water now and a March storm puts the crop down.
Cut when the grain is hard and the straw has gone. Combine at about 20% moisture, then dry down to 12% before it goes into the store.
Asked on the farm
The potential is what the variety has given in a good year under good management; the average is what it actually returns across ordinary seasons. Balwan-456 is the highest of the three we have published at 87.1 q/ha potential and 68 q/ha average. What your own field gives depends on sowing date, water and management far more than on the variety alone.
Forty kilos an acre for untreated seed. Treated seed needs less — 35 kg an acre with YieldMax on it, because a treated seed establishes more reliably and you are not sowing extra to cover the ones that fail. That is five kilos an acre back in your pocket before the crop has even come up. Push the rate up for a late sowing or a rough seedbed.
Every day after the third week of November costs yield. If you are going to be late, choose for it rather than against it — Balwan-303 takes a late sowing and Balwan-989 runs to the middle of December.
Balwan-456. At 120 days it finishes before the worst of the heat, and a heat tolerance index of 0.96 means it holds its yield when the season turns — which is how it averages 68 q/ha against a potential of 87.1.
Balwan-787 and Balwan-3967+ both tiller heavily and cut well for fodder; Balwan-989 is the one if you want the bhusa without giving up the chapati.
It compares what a variety yields when it meets heat at grain fill against what the same variety yields in a kind year. An index of 0.96 means Balwan-456 keeps about 96 out of every 100 kg when the season turns hot — which is what a late sowing, or an early March, actually costs you.
Every one of these is produced on the family's own 800 acres in the Terai and cleaned and graded on our 19 TPH line at Kichha, so the seed in the bag was grown under the same sky your crop will be.
Our YieldMax treatment goes on at the plant — nothing to mix in the yard, and nothing to get wrong. It is where the 15–20% lift over untreated seed comes from, and it also means you sow 35 kg an acre instead of 40, because you are no longer sowing extra to cover the seeds that fail to establish.
Seed enquiries, dealership, or help choosing a variety for your block.