Krishna district eyes 13.46 lakh tn of paddy

The Krishna district agriculture department is targeting a paddy production of 13.46 lakh tonnes in 2006-07 kharif (first crop), according to S Jagadeeswar Reddy, joint director.

Paddy transplantation has been completed in about 50,000 hectares of the planned 2.6 lakh hectares as against 2.5 lakh hectares sown in 2005 kharif. Paddy nurseries are being raised in about 2,000 hectares. The crop area fixed for all the other crops is around one lakh hectares.

Reddy told Business Standard that kharif paddy production fell to 8.3 lakh tonnes in the district last year due to heavy rains resulting in submergence of crop in 60,000 hectares. The district this June received 105.3 mm rain as against the normal rainfall of 98 mm and 6.5 mm so far in July as against the normal rainfall of 211 mm.

He said while the district's total paddy seed requirement was 1.25 lakh quintals for kharif, the AP Seeds Corporation would supply 25,000 quintals and the farmers who became members of the seed villages programme would chip in with 25,000 quintals. The remaining seed requirement would be met by private companies.

The hectareage fixed for other crops this kharif is as follows: Cotton 39,108 hectares (sown area 35,333 hectares in 2005), sugarcane 21,425 hectares (sown area 22,860 hectares in 2005), green gram 16,041 hectares (sown area 16,013 in 2005), maize 6,439 hectares (8,847 hectares), red gram 8,064 hectares (8,581 hectares), black gram 4,143 hectares (11,607 hectares), chillies 9,764 hectares (4,575 hectares), groundnut 1,710 hectares (1,602 hectares), sesamum 1,678 hectares (657 hectares), jowar 162 hectares (25 hectares), onion 20 hectares and horse gram 31 hectares.

As a first step towards implementing this year's action plan, Reddy said Rs 2.5 crore of the allocated Rs. 4.31 crore had been released to farmers under farm mechanisation. Of the targeted 25,200 soil test samples, 20,000 samples had already been collected and tested and analysis results were intimated to farmers.

About 3,000 quintals of targeted 5,500 quintals of green manure seeds (50 per cent subsidy) too have been been distributed to them. They would also be given 9,000 tonnes of gypsum (75 per cent subsidy) and 300 tonnes of zinc sulphate (50 per cent subsidy).

He said the department had helped farmers set up 114 units under the seed village scheme, each with 10 hectares, and supplied them breeder seeds of paddy, black gram and red gram. The farmers would develop seeds and supply them to fellow farmers. Eighty five units would produce paddy seeds, 25 would produce red gram seeds and four black gram seeds.

This year under organic farming, 20 vermicompost units (75 per cent subsidy) would be constructed in each mandal (total 50 mandals), each costing Rs 6,000, he said. Two bacterial decomposed (BD) compost units would also be set up in every mandal.

He said five vermi (seed) hatcheries would be set up in the district, each at a cost of Rs 1.5 lakh (Rs 75,000 subsidy). About 100 field school (polambadi) visits would be organised this year. About 1,240 Systemic Rice Intensification (SRI) demonstrations would be conducted in the district.