AP plans higher acreage

The Andhra Pradesh government has drawn up a plan to increase groundnut acreage in the state to 17.19 lakh hectares for 2007-08, up 3 per cent more than the last year's acreage.

The plan, to dislodge Gujarat's output, includes production of 11.66 lakh tonnes for kharif and 4.52 lakh tonnes for rabi . The government aims to achieve a productivity of 941 kg a hectare and, as a first measure, it has decided to increase the crop area by bringing fallow lands under groundnut cultivation in all the districts.

The AP Seeds Corporation will distribute 1.5 lakh quintals of quality and certified groundnut seed to farmers as against 91,621 quintals supplied last year.

Experts are advising farmers to sow GBPD-4 groundnut seed variety in place of the other varieties as it is resistant to foliar diseases and has high yield capacity under moisture stress and excessive moisture conditions.