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Birsa Agricultural University, Ranchi

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Author: Ekka, Abhijeet Pankaj × Type: Thesis ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    AGROCLIMATIC CHARACTERIZATION OF GUMLA DISTRICT FOR CROP PLANNING
    (Birsa Agricultural University, Ranchi, Jharkhand-6, 2018) Ekka, Abhijeet Pankaj; Kumari, Pragyan
    Agriculture is one of the most climate-sensitive sector among all the economic sectors. Despite ongoing improvements in technology and crop varieties, weather and climate remain uncontrollable factors affecting the quantity and quality of agricultural production. The timely onset of monsoon rain and its distribution during June and July decides the area coverage of rainfed crops. Indian agriculture, with 80% of farmers being smallholders (less than 0.5 ha), is monsoon-dependent, rainfed agriculture (58%) and about 30% of population is undernourished, malnourished, migrates from rural to urban regions. Agriculture has become more vulnerable to changed climate or variability situations, huge population is dependent on agriculture. Reduced food grain productivity, loss to vegetable and fruit crops, fodder scarcity, shortage of drinking water to animals during summer, forced migration, severe loss to poultry and fishery sectors have been registered and are threatening the livelihoods of rural poor. In order to minimize these risks, an attempt to study the agroclimate of Gumla district has been carried out for proper crop planning at block level. Of all the climatic factors, rainfall is of greatest concern to population in rainfed agriculture. The variation of monsoonal and annual rainfall in space and time are well known and this inter-annual variability of monsoonal rainfall has considerable impact on agricultural production, water management, energy generation and economic growth. Analysis of annual, seasonal and monthly rainfall of a region is useful to design water harvesting structure. Similarly weekly rainfall analysis give more useful information in crop planning .The cropping patterns are basically dependent on assured rainfall, length of growing period and Moisture Availability Index (MAI). The mean annual rainfall for Gumla is 1096.5 mm and the annual rainfall showed an increasing trend of 6.35 mm/year whereas the maximum rainfall distribution is observed during July and August. Lowest and highest rainfall receiving blocks are Basia (732.1mm) and Raidih (1502.9mm) with 35% and 37% CV, respectively. An increasing trend of maximum temperatures has been observed with stable sunshine hours whereas minimum temperature and relative humidity showed a decreasing trend. Gumla district is prone to mild drought (40.5%) which is maximum at Ghaghra followed by moderate drought observed maximum at Kamdara. Severe drought is observed in Basia and Raidih once in 17 years. Occurrence of Agricultural drought was mostly during early and late season. Sisai block faced maximum early drought, maximum mid season drought at Bishunpur and Gumla affected by late season drought. Initial probability of getting 10, 20 and 50 mm rainfall, above 50%, varies from 16 weeks, 13 weeks and 6 weeks, respectively for different blocks of the district. Most of the blocks come under dry to slightly moist and moist climatic type depending on the land situation whereas Basia and Kamdara come under semi slightly dry climatic condition. Water surplus in Basia and Kamdara are almost negligible in Upland and Don III and very little water can be harvested from Don II and Done I. Water surplus was observed in Raidih followed by Palkot and can be harvested more from all land situations. Productivity of Rice, Maize, Ragi, Wheat and Potato are increasing in Gumla district and is a potential area for Ragi and Potato. For doubling the farmer’s income under available moisture status of different block of the districts there is need to change the cropping pattern and introduce Maize-Potato in cropping system. Short duration varieties are recommended for major crops in the district such as Sahbhagi, Naveen and Anjali for Rice, Birsa makka-1 and Suwan for Miaze, Birsa marua-2, A- 404 for Ragi, K-9107, HDR-77 for wheat, Kufri lima, Kufri surya for potato and Birsa shivam, Shiwani for oilseeds which are of short duration(60 to 90 days) to avoid moisture stress. Gumla has greater chance for water surplus during rainy season thus offer opportunity for water harvesting and supplemented irrigation to mitigate drought. It can prove beneficial for successive rabi crops also.