Rice-Wheat Cropping Systems of the Indo-Gangetic Plain of India

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incompletely filled grains. Seed damage due to shriveling is also noted. In spite of these handicaps, because wheat has a stable performance (though at lower yield levels) and as it fits very well in the 2-crops-a-year rice-based system, it is cultivated extensively in the entire Middle-Gangetic Plains Region. Of course, the area intensity fluctuates in response to the water availability resource and the time of planting available. For example, in the north-eastern and south-eastern perennial flooded lands, where wheat is sown late after recession of the flood waters, the crop is raised mostly on stored soil moisture; its density is also thin in the eastern Bihar area (C3, C4, and C5 Zones) as compared with that in the Western or Eastern Uttar Pradesh. Agroclimatic Region III: Lower Gangetic Plain Region (West Bengal) Wheat is a recent entrant into West Bengal. Prior to the era of HYVs, hardly any wheat was cultivated in West Bengal. But since the advent of HYVs in the late 1960s, because of their short duration and photoperiod-insensitive nature, a sizeable area in West Bengal is now sown to wheat, particularly the area comprising the Old and New Alluvial Zone (D1). This zone includes the districts of Murshidabad, Nadia and 24 Parganas (South) which lie along the border of Bangladesh and enjoy comparatively cool winters. This makes wheat cultivation a successful economic proposition. Very little area has come to be occupied by wheat in ACZ D2 (Laterite and Red Laterite Soil Zone); perhaps because of (i) low soil water holding capacity and little opportunity for irrigation, and (ii) a comparatively higher temperature regime (warmer winters with no or very little chilling period). Total area of wheat in ACZ D2 (Birbhum, Medinipur and 22 Barddhaman districts) comes to around 20,000 ha with 12,000 ha accounted for by district Birbhum alone. The remaining two districts could be considered less important wheat-growing areas, having less than 5000 ha each. Distribution of Rice-Wheat Cropping System District-wise distribution of rice-wheat growing area (RWGA) is depicted in Figure 5. To qualify as an RWGA, only districts having an area of 5000 ha or more of rice as well as wheat have been taken to constitute RWGA. Thus, any district having less than 5000 ha of either rice or wheat has been excluded as it was considered not meeting the minimum requirement of RWGA. Accordingly, the area of rice-wheat on the basis of minimum common hectarage has been taken to be considered as R-W rotation. Further, it is quite possible that all of the rice area may not be going under wheat or vice-versa. By far the bulk of rice area at least in Punjab, Haryana, Western and Central and Eastern Uttar Pradesh and over most of Bihar is occupied by wheat, and bulk of rice area in West Bengal goes to wheat, therefore, in absence of more specific data, the minimum of the two crops taken as common factor has been assumed to represent RWCA. With these assumptions, rice-wheat cropping sequence (RWCS) is found to be uniformly spread over the whole of the IGP, stretching from India’s north-western border with Pakistan to its eastern borders with Bangladesh. The intensity of RWCS is observed to gradually decrease from west to east. Constraints of water availability (assured and timely irrigation) seem to act as the primary limiting factor in adoption of RWCS. Besides, weather, short-growing season, and absence of low temperatures of sufficient duration also tend to limit wheat
cultivation in eastern Bihar and West Bengal. RWCS is a stable system and wheat after rice could be grown under varied soil, climate, socioeconomic, technological, and population-food preference scenarios. More and more people in the rice-eating states are now consuming wheat. Further, wheat with its natural resilience grows well even under the low-input, low-moisture availability situations, particularly, when grown on residual soil moisture on medium to heavy paddy growing lands. Even a single irrigation to wheat makes a lot of difference and helps double its yield realization. It is, therefore, preferred over all other rabi season crops across a water availability range from nil, (except the carry-over profile stored moisture) to 100% irrigation (4–5) over the growing season. The rice, of course, as discussed earlier, is grown in Trans-Gangetic and Western and Central Uttar Pradesh irrigated regions solely for sale, made possible by committed procurement of the produce in full at fixed procurement prices. The area under rice continues to register an increase, though at a reducing rate, as underground water resource is increasingly becoming a limiting factor. Rice area is now being extended to saline-alkali brackish irrigation and waterlogged soils in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, though whether it would be possible to sustain it in the long run is a mute question. The considered view is that unrestricted increase of rice area in the brackish water zone and water-logged areas should be discouraged as in the long run flooding of these lands and increased additions (8–12 times more water than those needed to grow cotton or other low water requiring crops of oilseeds and pulse grains) may lead, in due course, to an abnormal rise of groundwater, too near to the root zone. This will cause serious waterlogging and build-up of salinity-alkalinity hazards. The cultivation of rice on soils with rising watertables may ultimately prove counterproductive. Present estimates put the total area occupied by RWCS at about 10.5 million ha (Tandon 1994) though some other estimates describe it as high as 12 million ha. Production of Rice and Wheat in the Indo-Gangetic Plain of India Rice Unlike the scatter of area, production of rice is concentrated primarily in four broad bands (Fig. 6): The first band of the highest production is focused around Punjab and Eastern Haryana. This area encompasses Zone A1 (Central Plain), A3 (Undulating Plain Zone and Sub-Montane Undulating Zone) and Zone A2 (Western Plain Zone) of Firozpur-Faridkot districts of Punjab, and Zone A4 (Eastern Zone) of Haryana of ACR VI: Trans-Gangetic Plain Region of the IGP. The second band of the highest rice production lies in West Bengal in ACR III: Lower Indo-Gangetic Plain Region, with production being equally thickly distributed over both the ACZ D1 (Old and New Alluvial Zone) and ACZ D2 (Laterite and Red Soil Zone). The production density thins out near the ACZ D3 (Coastal Saline Zone) due to obvious reasons of nonsuitability of this zone for arable farming. The third high density rice-production band is observed to be centered around the Bhabar & Tarai, and Mid-Western Plain Zone B2 of Western Uttar Pradesh, cutting the state longitudinally from NW to SW, and separating it from B4 on the southern boundary. 23
Page 1 and 2: Rice-Wheat Cropping Systems of the
Page 3: Of late, concerns have been express
Page 6 and 7: 6 Table 1. Modified agroclimatic zo
Page 8 and 9: preparatory tillage, puddling and t
Page 10 and 11: a minimal area of rice (confined to
Page 12: However, unambiguous rice area data
Page 24 and 25: The fourth band of high rice produc
Page 26 and 27: large-scale migration of able-bodie
Page 28 and 29: The compound rate of growth (Table
Page 30 and 31: ineffective extension/inputs servic
Page 32 and 33: encouraging and the ‘Wheat Green
Page 34: esides contributing to intense air
Page 37: Acknowledgements The authors would

Rice-Wheat Cropping Systems of the Indo-Gangetic Plain of India

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