Fears of low paddy acreage fade

MONSOON WATCH

Thanks to a late-season surge in rice sowing in the wake of an overall agriculture-friendly monsoon, the fear of shrinkage in paddy acreage this year is gradually waning. The latest reports indicate that the area planted with this crop has now marginally surpassed the last year's corresponding level.

Since paddy transplanting is till apace in many areas, except the north-western region, where it is practically over, the total area under the crop might ultimately turn out to be normal or even marginally higher than normal.

The sowing of most other kharif crops is nearing completion and the crop stand is reported satisfactory in most areas despite the reported emergence of some plant diseases and pests in some pockets. 
 

KHARIF SOWING (Till August - end)
Crop	Area sown (lakh ha)		% change
	This year	Last year
Rice	337.00	334.18	0.80
Coarse cereals	207.42	192.87	5.90
Pulses	115.29	106.40	8.30
Oilseeds	170.15	156.42	9.00
Cotton	90.20	86.14	4.70
Sugarcane	51.04	48.32	5.60
Jute & Hesta	9.37	9.71	-3.40
Source:Agriculture ministry

The positive farm outlook is attributed mainly to good overall rainfall, which is reckoned by the weather office at 2 per cent above normal till the end of August.

Although the rainfall in the third and fourth weeks of August was significantly below normal (deficient by 35 per cent and 5 per cent, respectively), but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise for agriculture in some respects.

Besides letting the flood fury to abate in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere, it allowed farmers to go out and work in the fields. Fortunately, the rainfall situation has improved again in September.

According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the ongoing spell of scattered rainfall in the agriculturally important north-western region is likely to continue for the next 2 to 3 days due to the presence of a westerly trough over the region.

This will reduce the demand for power and diesel for running irrigation pumps. The demand had swelled because of 10 per cent below normal cumulative rainfall in this region till the August-end.

However, the rainfall is forecast to decrease from Sunday, which might subsequently turn the conditions favourable for the monsoon to begin withdrawing from the western-most part of the country.

An upper air cyclonic circulation currently lies over Jharkhand and adjoining West Bengal and Bihar. This is likely to cause widespread rainfall with scattered heavy to very heavy showers in east Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Orissa and Gangetic West Bengal in the next 2 to 3 days.

Heavy rainfall is predicted also for sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, Bihar, Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh. In the south, rains and thunder showers are forecast for many places in north coastal Andhra Pradesh, coastal Karnataka, Kerala and Lakshadweep.

However, due largely to below normal rainfall in the second fortnight of August, the total water storage in the country's 81 major water reservoirs plunged, for the first time in this season, below the last year's corresponding level.

According to the data collected by the Central Water Commission, the total water stock in these dams on August 30 was 106.97 billion cubic metres (BCM), about 8 per cent below the last year's storage of 115.96 BCM. But, significantly, this is about 22 per cent above the long-period average of 87.42 BCM for this time of the year.

The good water stock bodes well for hydel power production, irrigation and other water-based economic activities. The total hydel power production capacity of these reservoirs is 14,533 mw and their irrigation potential is 162.44 million hectares.

The reports on crop sowing received from states by the agriculture ministry reveal that the total area planted with kharif crops till August 31 this year was 980.5 lakh hectares, up 4.6 per cent from the last year's 937 lakh hectares.

This represents over 97 per cent of the long-period average total kharif crop coverage of 1,008.3 lakh hectares. Since sowing of paddy and a few other crops is still continuing, the overall kharif sowing this season seems all set to exceed the normal sowing perceptibly.

However, though higher crop planting is a formidable positive factor for growth in kharif crop output, the experts are keeping their fingers crossed as yet. The conditions are turning favourable at various places for the build-up of pests and diseases.

In fact, there are already reports of attack of bunchy top disease in banana and that of foot rot, quick wilt and pollu beetle in pepper plantations in Kerala. Mild incidence of the dreaded white woolly aphids on sugarcane has been reported from Kolhapur and Pune divisions of Maharashtra.

Some pests have also been observed on cotton and rice in Punjab and Haryana. The farmers are being advised to spray pesticides to control them in case the infestation tends to cross the threshold limits.

Farmers in the flood-hit areas have been advised to add nitrogen to the fields to boost growth of the crops that have managed to withstand inundation. Slow nutrient-releasing fertilisers such as neem-coated urea should be preferred in such areas to avert nutrient wastage.

For the flood-damaged upland fields in Bihar, the experts are suggesting raising of nurseries of short-duration rice varieties such as Rajendra Sweta, Pusa 2-21, IR-36, Saryu-5 and Pant Dhan for subsequent transplanting in the main fields.