Widespread rain has come as a boon to the standing crop
— Photo: M. Srinath
AT WORK: Farmers engaged in planting samba crop in Thirumullaivasal near Sirkazhi in Nagapattinam district on Thursday.
NAGAPATTINAM: Cultivation of samba and thaladi paddy crops is in full swing in the district.
Transplantation of samba crop will be completed by month-end and thaladi by the first fortnight of next month.
Widespread rain in several parts of the district in the last two days has come as a boon to the standing crop.
Joint Director of Agriculture, Nagapattinam, P.R. Vaithiyanathan told The Hindu on Thursday that about 80,000 hectares, about 75 per cent of the proposed samba cultivation area of 1.07 lakh hectares (1.02 lakh hectares of normal samba area plus 5,000 hectares of kuruvai shortfall area), had already been raised with the samba crop.
Samba paddy nurseries were ready in about 2,200 hectares, which could be transplanted in another 22,000 hectares, and the entire samba transplantation would be completed by month-end.
Farmers in Thalainayar, Vedaranyam and Tirukkuvalai blocks raised the samba crop by direct-sown method in about 18,000 hectares.
Mr. Vaithiyanathan said thaladi paddy crop, the second crop being raised in the kuruvai cultivated area, would be cultivated in about 25,000 hectares this year of which transplantation had been completed in about 18,000 hectares.
The remaining 7,000 hectares would be transplanted before the first fortnight of next month.
Most of the farmers had cultivated ADT-38, ADT-39, Bapatla and CR-1009 varieties for the samba season and the condition of the crop was good throughout the district.
The irrigation channels had been desilted to ensure free flow of water in the tail-end areas of the district.
Mr Vaithiyanathan said many farmers in the delta were now switching over to System of Rice Intensification (SRI) cultivation method to achieve good yield with minimum cost of cultivation.
About 30 per cent of the samba area was now cultivated under the SRI method.
The extension centres of the agriculture department had good stock of imported DAP (Di-Ammonium Phosphate) to meet the requirement of the farmers. Besides, private traders were also keeping good stock of fertilizers.
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