Paddy yield up this time despite agri dept’s prediction of decline
CHANDIGARH : Paddy yield in the current kharif season has gone up to 2,645kg per acre from the last year’s 2,509kg even as the state agriculture department and farm experts had predicted a fall in production due to bad weather conditions this time.
Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) experts attributed the rise to new varieties of paddy and increase in soil fertility due to incorporation of crop residue into the soil that was started in the last kharif season.
The trend was found in 1,982 crop cutting tests conducted at 1,271 locations in all 22 districts of the state. The department reached the conclusion on the basis of two-thirds of the total experiments.
Agriculture department joint director (statistics) Major Singh said the trend is encouraging. “Despite rainfall at the maturing stage of crop in September month the crop cutting experiments have shown increase in yield,” he said. The results of the remaining one-third tests are expected to arrive within a week or so.
“But it won’t impact the results,” he added.
The highest-ever yield in the state was recorded in the 2017 kharif season at 2,659kg per acre.
A steep increase in yield was seen in Tarn Taran district from the last kharif season’s 2,383kg per acre to 2,989 kg this time, followed by Amritsar (1,806 kg to 2,297 kg), Rupnagar (2,115 kg to 2,502 kg), Mohali (2,001 kg to 2,434 kg), Gurdaspur (2,240 kg to 2,607 kg), Pathankot (1,984 kg to 2,284 kg) and, Moga (2,748 kg to 2989 kg) and Hoshiarpur (2,268kg to 2,415kg). Some of the districts where the yield declined are Barnala (3,026 kg to 2,820 kg), Sangrur (2,872 kg to 2,869 kg), Bathinda (2,778 kg to 2,762 kg), Ferozpur (2,716 kgs to 2,653 kg), Jalandhar (2,532 kg to 2,522 kg) and Mansa (2,700 kg to 2633 kg).
Secretary (agriculture) Kahan
Singh Pannu said, “Farmers should understand that mixing of stubble with soil increases organic matter and its nutrients besides water retention capacity. The increase in yield was also due to fall in use of fertilisers in the kharif crops,” he said.
“The paddy yield fell in 2018 due to heavy rainfall in the last week of September,” he added.
PAU vice chancellor BS Dhillon said, “Our department of climate change is studying the phenomenon of fall in minimum temperatures during the nights in the last few years, erratic rainfall and increase in the number of days of sunshine during the kharif season.”