Widespread heavy rain which lashed Kalaburagi district on Wednesday and continued till the early hours of Thursday has brought back the smiles on the faces of farmers, reviving the hopes of a bumper harvest for short duration cash crops, including green gram, black gram and sesamum.
In the past 24 hours, the district recorded a rainfall of 6.1 cm, while all the seven taluks received heavy and widespread rain saving the situation for the withering crops due to moisture stress, as it had not rained for the past nearly one month. Particularly, Kalaburagi, Chitapur, Sedam and Chincholi taluks received very good rain.
Sources in the Agriculture Department said that rain was long over due for the standing crops and in a few taluks, germinated crops had started withering due to lack of moisture in the soil. The only saving grace was the overcast weather conditions in the past one month, preventing evaporation of whatever moisture was left in the soil.
The spell of rain on Wednesday and Thursday will help in the revival and orderly growth of crops and help farmers reap rich from the short duration crops. In the past three years, farmers could not get much out of short duration cash crops due to the failure of the rain and whatever little they got was from the bi-seasonal red gram.
While farmers have taken up green gram in 46,448 hectares against a targeted area of 35,100 hectares, black gram has been sown in 24,009 hectares against a targeted area of 25,000 hectares. Sesamum has been taken up in an area of 8,155 hectares against the targeted area of 5,000 hectares.
The rain would also help red gram achieve an orderly growth with more branches to hold higher number of pods for higher yield. As against the targeted area of 3.62 lakh hectares, farmers have completed sowing in 3.52 lakh hectares. In the remaining area, sowing has been suspended due to an extended dry spell this month. However, sowing would resume now.
According to official figures provided by the Agriculture Department, farmers have completed sowing operations in 90 per cent of the targeted area.
Against 5.69 lakh hectares target fixed for kharif season, farmers have completed sowing in more than 5.11 lakh hectares. As much as 100 per cent sowing in the targeted area has been reported in Chincholi taluk, followed by 99 per cent in Afzalpur, 97 per cent in Sedam, 94 per cent in Aland, 93 and 92 per cent in Kalaburagi and Chitapur taluks, respectively and 65 per cent in Jewargi taluk.
