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Contribution of water and radiation to growth and yield of pearl millet inDeccan plateau - A case study

A.S. BALLAL and H.P. DAS

Meteorological Office. Pune - 411 005. India

(Received 30 March 2000. Modified 22 September 2000)

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A8STRJ\ CT. In this )!udy the agrome teorological data Ior the period from 1991 to 1991 have been used 10 studyevapoeanspi rauon demand and crop characteristics of pearl millet 31 Solapu r. Crop coefficients. water usc effic iency andradianee usc efficiency have been worked OUI and discussed. This has beendone (Of two varieties of the crop vtz; ICTp·8203and Shraddha.

The stud)' revealed tnat pear! millet crop consumed maximum amounl of water during earhcad emergence phase.followed by flowering phase. During earhead emergence and Flowering phase iogetbcr. K..'TP·820J variety used nearly 50%of total water used while shraddha consumed about (m. The: highest values of crop coefficient are seen during carheademergence phase for 00th thevarieties. Maximum photosynthetically active radiation isavailed by thecropduring itsvegetativephase . Rad iation usc efficiency is more (or IC-n )·820J variety than Shraddha variety.

Key words - Crop coefficient. water use efficiency. Photosyn thetically active radiation. Radiation usc efficiency.

I. Introd uction

Among the coarse grains. Pearl millet IPellnisetumglaucum (L.)] or Baj ra is a major cereal grown by farmers.afte r sorghum. in the dry tracts of India . Pearl milletproduction in India is mostly contributed by Rajasthan.Maharashtra, Unar Pradesh. Gujarat and !laryana accountingfor 87.7<;i. of area and 77.5~ of the prod uction (Ghonsikarand Shinde. 1997). It is mostly grow n a' a rainfed crop insandy and often shallow soil, having depleted fertility. Suchareas are characterised by short and highly variable rainyseaso n (2-4 months) with 20 to 80 cm of rainfall. highlempera ture and high potential evapotranspiratio n rates andare thus. agroclima tically unsuitable for olher crops.

Pearl millet efficienlly uses soil moisture and nutrienlS.It is preferred by farmers as a low COSI. low risk option. nol

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by choice. but by necessity (Harinarayana. 1986). Due 10 itsextensive and deep root system extend ing up to 120 em(Michael. 1990). Pearl millet is more drought resistance andhas higher plasticity than many other cereals.

In view of its importance to farmers in 10 \\' rainfa llzones in India. a study of pearl millet has attracted attentionof many research scientists. (Reddy et al, 1978; Gup ta, 1980:Venkataraman. 1988; Joshi. 1989; Jadhav et al. 1991:Sha ikh 1991, erc.). Solapu r is located in the drought pronearea of Maharashtra in the Deccan plateau in which pear lmillet is grown predominantly. Jadha v et al . (199~) studiedpearl millet at Sola pur in relalion 10 Growing Degree Days(GOD) and found thai this crop should be grown after thestart of rainy seaso n so that more GD D gets accumulated .Evapotranspiration requirements to aid irrigation scheduling.water co nsumption of the crop. water use efficiency. crop