The sowing of mustard, the main winter-grown oilseed, continues to rise rapidly even as the government is yet to announce the minimum support price (MSP) this year for rabi crops. An early start to sowing in the north will help farmers save the crops in case of higher than normal temperature before harvesting in March-April, experts said.

The total area under all rabi crops has reached 7.34 lakh hectares (lh) as of Friday — up from 2.16 lh a year ago, the Agriculture Ministry said releasing the weekly update. Mustard acreage tops with 4.30 lh against 0.67 lh, while the area under chana (gram) is 1 lh against 0.01 lh a year ago. Winter-grown rice acreage has also recorded progress as the area so far is 1.25 lh (0.7 lh).

Wheat sowing is yet to start as it normally starts from the last week of October. The entire area under mustard and chana has been reported only from Rajasthan, which is the first State to see the withdrawal of the south-west monsoon. The overall retreat of monsoon is expected next week.

Favourable conditions

The monsoon has completely withdrawn from Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. Most parts of Madhya Pradesh and some parts of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra have seen its retreat. “Conditions are very likely to become favourable for further withdrawal of monsoon from remaining parts of Central India, some more parts of Maharashtra and East and Northeast India during next 3 days,” India Meteorological Department said Friday.

Of the main 10 reservoirs in Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan having a storage capacity of 19.66 billion cubic meters (BCM), the total live storage available in these reservoirs was 17.60 BCM or 90 per cent of capacity as of October 13. The storage during the corresponding period a year ago was 65 per cent of capacity. Similarly, in 46 reservoirs of Gujarat and Maharashtra, the total live storage was 97 per cent of capacity and in 26 reservoirs of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh it was 87 per cent.

Fertiliser stock

The opening stock of urea was about 46 lakh tonne (lt), that of DAP about 15 lt, MOP 5 lt, complex (NPK) about 24 lt and SSP about 18 lt as on October 1.

The government has set a target of 164.85 million tonne (mt) of foodgrains including 112 mt of wheat, 18.5 mt rice, 19 mt pulses and 15.35 mt of coarse/nutri cereals in current rabi season.

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