Excess rain in Prakasam district during June raised hopes among the farmers to make good their losses incurred due to drought and get some decent returns at least during kharif season this year.
Thanks to good rainfall of 88.2 mm in the district during June as against the normal rainfall of 58 mm, farming operations picked up pace in the district after drought in two successive years.
Taking advantage of rains during the early phase of the Southwest Monsoon, the crop coverage was a healthy 22,000 hectares so far with the peasants going for green gram and sesame in more extent.
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Green gram coverage was a healthy 133 per cent as farmers preferred the remunerative pulse crop for sowing in 4,145 hectares. Sesame was grown so far in 8,856 acres, a whopping 193 per cent increase in acreage so far, explained Agriculture Joint Director J. Muralikrishna.
‘No seed shortage’
Sowing is in progress briskly in case of other crops like black gram, red gram, groundnut, chillies etc. “The crop coverage is likely to surpass the normal extent of 2.35 lakh hectares,” he said going by the prediction of the Met Department of 106 per cent rainfall in the district, where kharif and rabi seasons overlaps every year.
“There is no shortage of seeds in the district,” he said, adding that the department had positioned so far 7,000 quintals of seeds, including red gram (1,494 qtl), Sunhemp (1,416 qtl), green gram (1,396 qtl), black gram (208 qtl), as against the allotment of 17,878 qtl of subsidised seeds. “We will procure additional quantity of seeds if the situation warrants,” he added.
Meanwhile, Prakasam District Agricultural Advisory and Transfer of Technology Centre (DATTC) released 10 new seed varieties coinciding with the kharif cropping season.
New varieties
Farmers could benefit by sowing pest-resistant paddy varieties like NLR 4001, NLR 3513, BPT 2571, BPT 2660 and BPT 2595, said DATTC scientist O. Sharadha. New red gram varieties LRG 104, LRG 105, and LRG 160 would be ideal for sowing during kharif by farmers to avert pest attack, she suggested, adding ryots could also go for black gram variety GBG1 and green gram variety GGG1.
Farmers were forced to miss paddy cultivation altogether in the Nagarjunasagar command area and Krishna Western Delta last year due to poor storage in the reservoirs across the river Krishna, including Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar reservoirs.
Agriculture official says the crop coverage is likely to surpass the normal extent of 2.35 lakh hectares