Akola

General Information

Year of start: 1995	Latitude: 20.70 °N
Longitude: 77.02 °E	Altitude: 286 m
Name: Dr. Aravind Tupe, Agrometeorologist.	Location: Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth,                Krishinagar, Akola-444 104 (Maharashtra)                Email: akl.aicrpam@gmail.com.
Phones: UNIVERSITY 0724-2258115	Fax Number: 0724-2258569
E-mail: akl.aicrpam@gmail.com

Description Eastern Maharashtra Plateau, hot moist semi-arid ESR with medium and deep clayey black soils (shallow loamy to clayey black soils as inclusion), medium to high AWC and LGP 120 -150 days

Agroclimatic Characterization

1. In Vidarbha region, rainy days with 25-50 mm and 50-75 mm rainfall increased significantly while rainy days with more than 100 mm of rainfall decreased significantly. 2. Trend analysis of monthly rainfall for time periods 1901-1930, 1931- 1960, 1961-1990 and 1991-2013 for all the districts of Vidarbha region indicated the decrease in number of rainy days. 3. Meteorological drought analysis carried out using SPI for Eastern, Western and Central Vidarbha zones indicated that August precipitation has increased over the past 112 years in all the three zones and significantly in western zone. Table: Mann Kendall Trend statistic of SPI for different time scale for the period (1901-2012) at different zones of Vidarbha regions of Maharashtra Zone SPI 1-June SPI 1-July SPI 1-Aug. SPI 1-Sept. SPI 3-Aug. SPI 3-Oct. SPI 6-Nov. Western -0.551 -0.465 +2.763 -0.878 +1.044 +1.710 +0.611 Central -1.157 -1.157 +1.081 -1.368 -0.397 +0.415 -0.873 Eastern -0.292 -1.318 +0.239 -0.958 +1.262 -0.427 -1.303 + Significant at p=0.1, * Significant at p=0.01

Crop Weather Relationship

1. Crop weather relationship studies in cotton at Akola revealed that increase in rainfall by 10 mm during reproductive phase increased the yield by 93 kg/ha 2.Soybean variety TAMS-98-21 showed highest water use efficiency (WUE) and water productivity (WP), compared to JS-335 and JS-9305 across all the sowing windows at Akola. 3.Weather variables averaged over 10 years during different phenological stages in two soybean cultivars and their combination under four growing environments (26 to 29 MW) revealed that higher seed yield could be realized under favorable growing environment with adequate rainfall.(190 mm), minimum temperature (23.0 to 23.1°C), photoperiod hours (491 to 513 hrs) and lower maximum temperature (31.2 to 31.4 °C) and Diurnal Temperature Range, DTR (8.0 to 8.4 °C) during pod formation to seed fill stage. 4.Crop-weather relationship studies in different cotton types, viz., G. arboreum, G. hirsutum and Bt cotton revealed that fraction of intercepted PAR was more in Bt cotton Balwan followed by hirsutum (AKH-081) and arboreum (AKA-7) cotton varieties.

Crop Growth Modelling

DSSAT-soybean model was calibrated and validated for cv. JS-335 and TAMS 98-21 at Akola and yield could be predicted with reasonable accuracy.

Crop Pest Weather Relationship

Will be Updated soon...

Agromet Advisories

Will be Updated soon...