The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Dry weather hits crops

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 26, 2011
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Dry weather hits crops

Staff Reporter

Pulses may be affected if the conditions persist

SANGAREDDY: With the dry spell continuing in the district, officials feel that crops like black gram and green gram may face trouble if there is no rain for the next one week to 10 days.

Coverage

According to sources in the Agriculture Department, only 5,000 hectares was so far sown by farmers out of the total normal sowing area of 3.86 lakh hectares. While last year sown area was recorded at 4.2 lakh hectares, the officials estimate that the sowing area in the current season may touch 4.6 lakh hectares, an increase of 40,000 hectares.

“The situation is not that alarming. The season is not yet over for crops except pulses like green gram and black gram. There is another one week to 10 days time to sow even these two crops,” said an official of the Agriculture Department.

While the scheduled rainfall by this time was 92 m.m., the recorded rainfall as on June 24 stood at 41 mm. Even during last year the rain fall by the same date was recorded at 73 m.m.

Farmers were advised to go for crops like red gram, cotton and maize if the rain God continues to play hide and seek. “In some cases farmers took up the sowing with the first rainfall without waiting for the next spell. This has created problem to those farmers. But otherwise the situation is normal and nothing to worry,'' the official said.

The officials are also confident that they can meet the demand for fertilizer and seed.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh