GULBARGA: The recent rain in Gulbarga district has revived the hopes of farmers for a good rabi season.

The September rain has helped the standing Red Gram crop, which is the main stay of the district farmers, survive the extreme drought conditions. However, the yield is likely to come down by at least 40 per cent owing to the failure of the rain in the crucial period.

Sources in the Agriculture Department told The Hindu here on Wednesday that although rain in the past few days had helped farmers perform the initial tilling before taking up sowing operations, if it played truant again farmers who had taken up rabi sowing would be in trouble.

Sources said rabi crops survived primarily because of residual moisture in the soil. However, this year the moisture content in the soil was low owing to failure of rain during the khariff season. If the rabi crops had to survive it should continue to get good rain in October and till the first fortnight of November.

Farmers face a peculiar situation, they require rain to save to rabi crops but dry weather will help Red Gram growers avert the threat of the pests.

Referring to the condition of the Red Gram crop taken up in a record 3.25 lakh hectares this year, sources said 10 per cent of the sown area was lost owing to paucity of rain and in the remaining 90 per cent as the crop was not good.

Although the crop survived the worst ever drought this year with 72 days of dry spell, the growth of the plants was stunted and was affected owing to failure of rains and lack of moisture content in the soil.

Owing to failure of rain, large tracts remained barren and the Agriculture Department has redrawn its targets for the rabi season in the district from the 6.34 lakh hectares to 7.64 lakh hectares owing to shifting of the unsown khariff area to rabi. Sowing has been completed in 6,000 hectares in the district.

Good demand

There has been good demand for the Bengal Gram seed this year from farmers and the district is experiencing a shortage of fertilizers.

The department has placed orders for fertilizers.

As against the normal rainfall up to September of 664.01 mm in the district, the rainfall recorded so far is 349.93 mm.

All ten taluks have recorded less than normal rainfall. The failure of rain in crucial months of July and August has hit farmers badly.

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