Lucknow, April 22 (IANS): The Met department has issued a warning to farmers of Uttar Pradesh of a possible spell of rain on April 25-26.

Met officials said eastern and western Uttar Pradesh would receive heavy to moderate rainfall over the weekend.

While most of the crop has been devastated in the state due to the previous three spells of rainfall in March and April, the warning has now been issued so that the farmers whose crop has been cut and is piled up in the fields may be stored carefully in safe places, an official informed IANS.

Officials of the state government say as much as 25-30 percent of harvested crop is still lying in the open and is at risk of being destroyed in case of a downpour.

Other than this, wheat in over 25 lakh hectares of agricultural land is still to be cut.

Warning messages were being sent by the union agriculture ministry to farmers in places like Bareilly, Moradabad, Lucknow, Hardoi, Unnao, Sitapur, Bahraich, Lakhimpur Kheri, Faizabad, Sultanpur, Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Deoria, Varanasi, Allahabad, Mirzapur, Sonebhadra, Mau and Ballia -- places where rains are likely over the weekend.