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New Delhi, Nov. 28 Rabi sowing is fairly robust in the current year, with farmers bringing in more area under most crops relative to last year.

According to the Agriculture Ministry’s latest Crop Weather Watch Report, released here on Friday, wheat planting has so far been done on 118.03 lakh hectares (lh), which is higher than the 114.12 lh covered during the same period last year.

While acreage has gone up in Uttar Pradesh (from 31.10 lh to 32.81 lh), Haryana (18.75 to 20), Gujarat (4.02 to 4.65), Rajasthan (1.57 to 4.84) and Karnataka (1.95 to 2.05), it is trailing behind marginally in Punjab (29.41 to 29.32), Madhya Pradesh (15.78 to 15.24), and Maharashtra (4.64 to 4.29).

The normal time for sowing wheat is from mid-November to mid-December.

In case of planting after mid-December, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has estimated average per hectare yields to drop from 4.5 tonnes to 3.6 tonnes in north-west India (Punjab, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh), from 4.3 to 3.7 tonnes in central India (Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat), and from 3.8 to 3.1 tonnes in eastern UP-Bihar.

The yields could go down still further in these regions to 2.8 tonnes, 2.6 tonnes and 2.4 tonnes, respectively if sowing takes place after late-December. “With minimum temperatures falling over the northwest and adjoining central India, much of the area will be covered within the next couple of weeks,” ministry officials said.

Meanwhile, in most other crops, there has been a significant jump in acreages — be it jowar, maize and barley or oilseeds (rapeseed-mustard, sunflower and groundnut) and pulses (gram, lentil and peas). All in all, the pointers are to a bumper rabi harvest, subject to favourable weather conditions such as rains in December-January and no early onset of summer.

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