Annual Report 2014-15

Abstract

Drought conditions prevailed during the year at Hayathnagar Research Farm where the annual rainfall was 435.5 mm, 38% lower than the normal rainfall of 703.5 mm, and monsoon season rainfall was 249.8 mm, 49% lower than the normal. There were 38 days with rainfall >2.5 mm compared to normal of 48 rainy days. • ‘District Database of Agricultural Statistics - A database management system’ was developed and web enabled to make available online. Users can download data or generate bar chart, line diagram, pie diagram, etc. from the data to understand status or trends and the same can be saved as an image fi le. • Districts with high potential for yield gains were identifi ed for crops viz., rice, sorghum, pearlmillet, maize, pigeonpea, chickpea, groundnut, sunfl ower, soybean, rapeseed & mustard and cotton. • Loew model and Topps model was successfully applied to derive soil moisture from respective dielectric constants and was found to estimate the lower and higher soil moisture percentage, respectively. Climate change • A study on adaptation to climate change showed that change of variety (Swarna) in rice would give better yields compared to the local variety in a climate change scenario. • The major adaptation measures followed by farmers towards climate variability and change include change in planting dates and cropping pattern followed by diversifi cation to livestock Rainwater management • The results of maize fi eld experiments with polymer conducted during two contrasting years with respect to amount of rainfall received and length of dry spells clearly indicated that the application of 25 kg/ha polyacrylamide polymer would enhance crop growth, yield and rain water use effi ciency by effectively managing short dry spells. But their effect may not be signifi cant if the amount of rainfall received is considerably low with prolonged dry spells. • The CWPF (crop water production function) for four management options were developed and the coeffi cient of determination was found to vary between 0.88 and 0.97. • The FAO-AquaCrop model performance was evaluated using the experimental data of maize. Good agreement was observed between measured and simulated grain yield and water productivity with R2 of 0.93 and 0.86 respectively. The model simulated grain yield and water productivity with an effi ciency of 0.99 and 0.85 respectively which are within the acceptable limits. • A new methodology was proposed for watershed planning based on land use and proposed insitu conservation measures and existing storage available within watershed. The methodology helps identify the requirement of on-stream storage structures within the watershed based on runoff available after accounting for in-situ conservation methods in various landuses. • Out of 421 districts indentifi ed to be dominant for rabi areas, 112 districts had extremely low to very low ground water recharge prospects. Among these 112 districts, 32 districts are in Uttar Pradesh, 11 districts each in Haryana and Punjab, 9 districts each in Bihar and Maharashtra, 7 districts in Telangana and others are spread in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Tamilnadu. Another 133 districts had the low prospects for ground water recharge during the current monsoon and are spread in Uttar Pradesh (19)