Sowing of summer crops picks up with monsoon rains

New Delhi, July 10 (UNI)With widespead rains, now covering northern parts of the country also, cultivation area of rice in the current summer planting season which began on June 1 has touched 6.1 million hectares, up from 5.3 million hectares during the corresponding period last year.

Sowing of summer oilseeds, which lagged behind until the previous week due to deficient rains, has now picked up with acreage estimated at 3.4 million hectares till July 7, up from 3.3 million hectares in the year-earlier period.

Cultivation of oilseeds, however, was delayed in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh is the largest soybean producing state in terms of volume.

Two main summer-sown oilseeds are soybeans and groundnuts.

As of July 7, sowing of soybean was estimated at 1.05 million hectares, down from 1.34 million hectares a year earlier, while groundnut sowing increased to 1.5 million hectares from 1.2 million hectares.

High prices of pulses has led to a notable rise in their sowing over the previous year with their acreage, as of July 7 estimated at 2.6 million hectares, up from 2.0 million hectares a year earlier.

Sixty per cent of unirrigated areas under other summer-sown crops like sugar cane, groundnuts, soybeans and rice highly depend on monsoon rains which began a week ahead of schedule on May 26. but it underwent a weak phase of around 17 days last month in many regions of north and west which produce oilseeds,pulses and other summer crops.

Rainfall registered 9 per cent below the normal during the June 1 to July 5 but it picked up to become 13.1 per cent above normal later, spurring sowing of oilseeds, groundnut and soybean in central and western parts of the country.

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