Pune: The district recorded over 100% kharif sowing for the second consecutive year, even after facing a fortnight-long break in rainfall during August, agriculture officials said.Sanjay Kachole, the district agriculture officer, expressed optimism over the upcoming harvest. “The overall productivity of the district is expected to increase this season as we have recorded over 100% sowing,” he told TOI.Major kharif crops in the district are bajra, maize, soybean, urad, and paddy. Harvesting has already began for black and green gram. Officials said that temporary rainfall break had little impact on paddy cultivation.“Good rainfall over the past two weeks has given significant boost to paddy cultivation. As a result, we have been able to achieve average coverage of around 60,000 hectares in the paddy-growing tehsils,” the official added.This year, the area under maize increased significantly as it was getting good rates in the market. “At the same time, the prices of soybean remained below Rs 4,000 per quintal. This forced the farmers to switch to maize this season,” said the officials.Farmers cultivate two types of maize — one used as fodder for cattle, while the other variety is sweet corn that has a huge demand during the monsoon. As a result, maize has emerged as a monsoon cash crop for farmers in the state.“The district achieved average sowing of soybeans, but the area under it was replaced by maize mainly due to volatile market scenario,” added the officials.For paddy growers, the monsoon this year has not been conducive due to continuous rainfall in May and early June, said officials. The growers did not get adequate time to set up nurseries of saplings. Also, they had to wait for a long time to get respite from rainfall to prepare their farms for plantations.“These two factors affected the entire schedule of plantation. However, they could execute their work after getting a brief break from rainfall in July. That is when maximum paddy plantations took place in the district,” said a senior agriculture official.Growers in Bhor, Velhe, Maval, Mulshi, Khed, Ambegaon, and Junnar tehsils cultivate a variety of paddy. “For the last few years, the Indrayani variety has provided a boost to paddy cultivation in these tehsils. As a result, farmers could earn a good return every season,” added the official.Graphic:The average Kharif sowing area in the district is 2.02 lakh hectares.Paddy is one of the crucial crops.It has been cultivated on about 60,000 hectares.The harvest of green and black grams has started, while soybean harvesting is expected to begin in the next two weeks.Maize supply has been steady and high in the market in local and APMC markets in the districts
