The planting area under the summer crops, sown after rabi harvest and before kharif sowing, reached 47.57 lakh hectare (lh) as of March 25, which is 7.5 per cent higher from 44.24 lh a year-ago. About 9.54 lh have been covered during past one week, the data shows.
Overall summer rice acreage is lower at 27.44 lh compared with 27.87 lh during the corresponding period last year. The area under production has been reported mainly from West Bengal (9.27 lh), Telangana (6.74 lh), Karnataka (2.90 lh), Odisha (2.02 lh), Assam (1.93 lh), Tamil Nadu (0.81 lh), Chhattisgarh (0.77 lh), Andhra Pradesh (0.72 lh), Gujarat (0.70 lh), Kerala (0.55 lh), Maharashtra (0.38 lh), Jharkhand (0.14 lh) and Bihar (0.06 lh).
Pulses sowing ahead
The summer pulses sowing has been ahead of last year’s level. About 7.48 lh area coverage has been reported under pulses as against 5.27 lh during the year-ago period as both sowing of moong and urad is higher. The pulses area has reached 2.46 lh in Odisha, Tamil Nadu (1.76 lh), Uttar Pradesh (0.86 lh), West Bengal (0.72 lh), Gujarat (0.49 lh), Madhya Pradesh (0.42 lh), Chhattisgarh (0.26 lh), Bihar (0.14 lh), Maharashtra (0.12 lh) and Karnataka (0.10 lh).
The summer moong area is reported at 4.87 lh as against 3.64 lh year-ago while that of urad has increased to 2.31 lh from 1.38 lh.
The sowing area under oilseeds was reported at 7.08 lh, higher than 6.77 lh in the year-ago period. The sowing area under oilseeds was trailing the year-ago until last week and for the first time in this season it has shown an improvement this week . The acreage in West Bengal is 1.75 lh, Maharashtra (1.06 lh), Gujarat (0.95 lh), Karnataka (0.94 lh), Telangana (0.52 lh), Odisha (0.43 lh), Uttar Pradesh (0.40 lh), Tamil Nadu (0.33 lh), Chhattisgarh (0.30 lh) and Andhra Pradesh (0.29 lh).
The coarse cereals acreage for summer is also higher at 5.57 lh from 4.34 lh. Among the coarse cereals, area under maize is higher at 3.93 lh from 3.41 lh in the year-ago period and the planting window is nearly completSu