Impact of climate resilient practice on mustard production and profitability in Nicra village

Abstract

India is the fourth largest oilseed economy in the world after USA, China and Brazil. Rapeseed mustard (Brassica juncea L.) is the second most important oilseed crop in India, next to soybean, with almost one fourth share in area and production (Raghuvanshi et al. 2018). Mustard is a cash crop and more remunerative than other field crops. Mustard is the most important rabi season oilseed crop of Rajasthan. It is grown in 2.71 million ha with a production of 4.3 million tonnes and 1586 kg/ha of average productivity. The average production of the district is 906 kg/ha (Anonymous, 2019-20). Climate change becomes a major bottleneck for sustainable agriculture in recent years. Extreme climatic events such as frost, heat stress, moisture stress, new diseases and pests become major drivers in successful crop production. Frost or Tusar or Pala is a localized phenomenon which is fairly common in northern India. Due to Climate change frost becomes a regular phenomenon in recent years in semi arid regions of Rajasthan. Frost damage occurs when ice forms inside the plant tissue and injures plant cell. The extent of injury caused by frost mainly depends upon the temperature below freezing point, period of low temperature and the crop stage at which frost occurs. The freezing can be either extracellular or intracellular. The ice formation disrupts the protoplasts (Levitt, 1980).