Farmers were overjoyed when the southwest monsoon brought rains abundantly, but it has turned into a woe with the groundnut crop sown in close to 5 lakh hectares in the district getting badly affected due to water stagnation or excess mixture in the soil.
The scientists at the Agriculture Research Station, Rekulakunta have tested the crops sown in June, July and August to assess the likely yield, which brought the bad news that the average final yield is likely to be below 500 kg per hectare.
“Commercially to break even for a farmer, at least 700 kg per hectare is what we look forward to. With 539 mm rainfall recorded from June 1 till September 27, the groundnut crop has been badly damaged. We witnessed some lanky green crops, but with no pod formation or a very small one. Most of the crop sown in July had suffered a change of leaf colour from green to yellow with leaf spot disease setting in. Sucking pests ‘jassids’ attacked crop in a large area,” ARS Principal Scientist B. Sahadeva Reddy told The Hindu .
Poor flowering
The groundnut crop sown in June and July (47,050 hectares and 4,11,128 hectares respectively) witnessed thick vegetative growth with poor flowering and formation of pegs and conversion of pegs into pods. A high incidence of leaf spots and sucking pest attacks were seen on a large scale on K-6 variety of seed supplied on subsidy by the government as that is the most popular variety in the district. In August it was sown in 41,693 hectares.
In Rapthadu a tenant farmer, Vasundhara, who had sown in 10 acres has already incurred ₹2 lakh loss and many others are facing a similar fate.
Mr. Sahadeva Reddy suggests diversification of crops to avoid losses.
High failure rate
In 2008 when there was excess rainfall like the current season, the yield was 88 kg/hectare.
In the last 25 years profitable groundnut yields were recorded only in seven years – 1995 (1,310 kg/ha), 1996 (711), 1998 (1,145), 2000 (1,116), 2004 (798), 2007 (1,258) and in 2017 (992).
