Maize as Fuel of Future

 STATUS OF GUAR CROP 2021-22 BIKANER

Introduction:

BKC Aggregators has been working in area of weather-focused advisories to the farmers through an app named FASAL SALAH. Through this app, Farmers get advisories based on variety sown, date of sowing and weather forecast of their village. Farmers also send their crop pictures as prescribed. This App uses artificial intelligence for image processing of farmers sent pictures and crop modelling analytics, which BKC has established for calculation of yield and health of the crop well before the harvest. The service has been in successful operations with a large number of farmers.

 

FASAL SALAH App, Our Crop monitoring technology is unique using bottoms up approach at field level and correlating ground realities with real-time crop vegetation index monitored via spectral analysis of high-resolution satellite images for different fields and crops. This enables to track positive and negative dynamics of crop development much more realistically.

This way it is more realistic way of crop yield estimation before actual harvest. Our technology has been field tested and awarded by Govt. of India (Winner of Great Agriculture Challenge 2019). 

 

In Kharif season 2021-22, FASAL SALAH team carried out a study of crops grown district Bikaner of Rajasthan. Idea was to look at the crop health by using the crop pictures sent by the farmers through FASAL SALAH App and satellite pictures, which later helps us to determine the crop yield.

 

About:

• The district lies at the 28°01’20.30” N latitude and 73°18’ 57.64” E longitudes covering an area of 30,247km2, according to the 2011 census Indore district has a population of 23.6 Lakh.
• Bikaner falls under Trans Gangetic Plain Region (VI) with an annual rainfall of 263 mm with the South West Monsoon, North East Monsoon, Winter and Summer supply.
• The net sown area is 1273 thousand hectares and gross irrigated area is 375.3 thousand hectares with cropping intensity of 112.6%.

·         The district has a wide variety of crops grown where major Kharif crops in the region are Cluster bean (Guar), Groundnut and Pearl Millet.

Weather Outlook:

                                        Indian Summery and Weather Forecast

 

·         A Well-marked Low Pressure Area lies over central parts of north Madhya Pradesh and neighborhood. It is very likely to move west-northwestwards during next 2 days and weaken thereafter.

·         A cyclonic circulation over lies south Gujarat Region & neighborhood in lower tropospheric levels.

·         The monsoon trough lies south of its normal position. It is very likely to remain south of its normal position during next 3 days.

·         A Cyclonic Circulation likely to develop over north Bay of Bengal on 17th September, 2021. It is likely to move west-northwestwards towards Odisha- West Bengal coast during subsequent 3 days.

·         During the next 24 hours, light to moderate rain with a few heavy spells are possible over Gangetic West Bengal, adjoining parts of North Odisha, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Parts of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, parts of Uttarakhand, southeast Rajasthan, parts of Gujarat and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

·         Scattered light to moderate rain may occur, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim sub-Himalayan West Bengal, North east India, Delhi parts of Punjab, Haryana, remaining parts of Rajasthan, Konkan and Goa, Coastal Karnataka, Kerala, Lakshadweep and parts of Vidarbha.

Rainfall in Guar Belt

Forecast for next 15–days

·         Major Guar growing areas showing Deficient rainfall in last year and same scenario can be seen in Khajuwala, Poogali, Chhatargarh and Lunkaransar block while Kolayat and Bikaner blocks showing near normal condition and Nokha and Sridungargarh showing normal rainfall condition in upcoming days.

Vegetation condition index (VCI):

VCI is used to identify drought situations and determine the onset, especially in areas where drought episodes are localized and ill defined. It focuses on the impact of drought on vegetation and can provide information on the onset, duration and severity of drought by noting vegetation changes and comparing them with historical values. VCI value is being measured in percentage ranging from 1 to 100. The range between 50% and 100% indicates above normal condition of vegetation whereas the values ranging from 50% to 35% indicate the drought condition and below 35% indicates severe drought condition.

Flow Chart: Vegetation Condition Index (VCI)

·         Based on Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) Bikaner district showing near normal condition in north eastern side while, due to presence of desert in western part of states showing near drought condition during the month of Aug 2021.

Standardized precipitation index (SPI):

 

The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) is a widely used index to characterize meteorological drought on a range of timescales. On short timescales, the SPI is closely related to soil moisture, while at longer timescales, the SPI can be related to groundwater and reservoir storage. The SPI can be compared across regions with markedly different climates. It quantifies observed precipitation as a standardized departure from a selected probability distribution function that models the raw precipitation data. The raw precipitation data are typically fitted to a gamma or a Pearson Type III distribution, and then transformed to a normal distribution. The SPI values can be interpreted as the number of standard deviations by which the observed anomaly deviates from the long-term mean.

 

The SPI values for any given location and accumulation period, are classified into seven different precipitation regimes (from dry to wet), as shown in Table. As can be seen, increasingly severe rainfall deficits (i.e., meteorological droughts) are indicated as SPI decreases below ‒1.0, while increasingly severe excess rainfall is indicated as SPI increases above 1.0.

ANOMALY	RANGE OF SPI VALUES	PRECIPITATION REGIME	CUMULATIVE PROBABILITY	PROBABILITY OF EVENT (%)	COLOR
Positive	2.0 < SPI <= MAX	Extremely wet	0.977 - 1.000	2.3
	1.5 < SPI <= 2.0	Very wet	0.933 - 0.977	4.4
	1.0 < SPI <= 1.5	Moderately wet	0.841 - 0.933	9.2
None	1.0 < SPI <= -1.0	Normal precipitation	0.159 - 0.841	68.2
Negative	1.5 < SPI <= -1.0	Moderately dry	0.067 - 0.159	9.2
	-2.0 < SPI <= -1.5	Very dry	0.023 - 0.067	4.4
	MIN <= SPI <= -2.0	Extremely dry	0.000 - 0.023	2.3

SPI Classification scheme

·         Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) shows near normal condition in majority of the blocks on compare with the normal during the second fortnight of Aug 2021.

·         Normal of rainfall in current year the index showing near unfavorable condition, while some blocks of Rajasthan like Bikaner, Kolayat, Lukaransar, Nokha and Sridungargarh showing above normal condition in normal year.

Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI):

Aug 1^st fortnight 2020

Aug 1^st fortnight 2021

·         NDVI values of the current year are lagging behind than that of the previous year in all over the district during the Kharif season 2021.

Aug 2^nd fortnight 2021

Aug 2^nd fortnight 2020

·         Continue crop health showing unfavorable condition during the second fortnight of August 2021.

Soil moisture:

Aug 1^st fortnight 2021

Aug 1^st fortnight 2020

·         Soil moisture value seems to have slightly decreased during the first fortnight of August on compared with previous year in 2021.

·         Soil moisture in the 1^st fortnight August displays a picture of unhealthy moisture content throughout the district as compared to the normal.

Aug 2^nd fortnight 2021

Aug 2^nd fortnight 2020

·         All over the district displays lower moisture content with respect to the previous year during the month of Aug 2021.

·         Soil moisture when compared with the normal so the all over the district showing same scenario as compared with the last year.

Acreage estimates Bikaner (Rajasthan):

·         Guar is the major crop of Bikaner district during the Kharif season 2021 with crop acreage area of 550665 hectares.

Farmers Feedbacks

 

We at BKC Aggregators run an App called FASAL SALAH that connects us with lacs of farmers on one-to-one basis. We provide to the farmers weather linked advisories based on his soil, his variety, date of sowing using artificial intelligence Farmers also send their drop pictures for us to run ML programs to improve advisories further.

 

Babulal Barod, a farmer at FASAL SALAH from Sridungargarh tehsil of Bikaner district in Rajasthan, reported that guar crop in his field has attained growth but condition of crop is not good due to insufficient rainfall. He has sown in 3 acres of area and it is comparatively lower than previous years.

 

Another farmer Mukesh from Nokha tehsil  reported that he has sown maize in 5 acres of land which is nearly same as previous year. Significant pest and disease attack are visible. Lack of monsoon is one of the major concern. Even canal water are insufficient for irrigation.

A medium scale farmer Dharmpal Rojh from Lunkaransar tehsil of Bikaner has reported about leaf of crop drying up and growth is not up to the mark. There is no sufficient water to irrigate the crop. Germination of the crop was good and vegetative growth declined due to moisture stress.

Conclusion:

 

• On the basis of NDVI crop health condition of Bikaner district depicts unvafourable condition during the month of Aug.
• Crop helath condition in major cotton growing districts Bikaner, Barmer, Churu, Jaiselmer, Nagaur, Jodhpur, Sikar and Jhunjhunu showing appropiate condition as compared with the previous year and normal 2021.
• Based on Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) Bikaner district showing near normal condition in whole north eastern side while, due to presence of desert in western part of states showing near drought condition during the month of Aug 2021.
• Standarized Precepitation Index (SPI) in Bikaner district depicts lagging behind compared with the last 5 year normal.
• Actual weather condition in Bikaner district showing deficient condition, While when we see in forecast of the district so all over the state showing normal condition.
• Rajasthan district Bikaner this year the moisture condition is slightly inferior, in comparison to Previous year and normal conditions during the month of Aug 2021.
• Guar is the major crop of Bikaner district during the kharif season 2021 with crop area of 550665 hectares. Area of Guar crop in current year showing slightly lower compared with the previous year. On the basis of NDVI crop health condition of Bikaner district depicts inferior condition with respect to the year 2020 in kharif season 2021 and same scenario can be seen in acreage estimation.