Impact of recent weather variability on rice yield in Ludhiana district of Punjab

Abstract

Rice is one of the chief food grains and is staple food of about 50 percent of world's population. Rice crop is highly weather dependent and any change in weather parameters like temperature, rainfall can infuence its productivity. Rice is a predominant crop of north-west India including Punjab. In Punjab, during recent two years, i.e. 2018 and 2019 there has been a drop in its productivity as compared to 2017 though the crop management conditions were same. So the analysis of effect of weather variables on rice crop at Ludhiana was conducted for three years viz. 2017, 2018 and 2019. Rice productivity showed variability during these years as in 2017 rice yield was 48.15q/ha as compared to 2018 with yield of 47.43 q/ha and 2019 with further lower yield of 44.53 q/ha. One of the major reason for fall in rice yield during 2018 and 2019 was occurrence of above normal (+42%) rainfall especially at the ripening stage of rice in the month of September (above normal by +146% in 2018 and +160% in 2019). This rainfall resulted in sudden lowering of maximum temperature (3rd week September to 2nd week October) by 3.0 to 9.0oC which was not favourable for ripening of rice grains. There was reduction in bright sunshine hours (BSS) by 12.3% in 2018 and by 11.0% in 2019 as compared to actual BSS of 988.4 hour in 2017 which is detrimental for photosynthetic activity in rice. During 2019 the yield was reduced from that of 2017 and 2018 as the maximum temperature was consistently higher by >3–4oC during transplanting and tillering stage and the minimum temperature was higher by >3–4oC during fowering stage of rice crop. So all these weather conditions resulted in decrease in rice yield during 2018 and 2019 as compared to 2017 though the crop management practices (cultivars, fertilizers, biotic stress management) during these three consecutive years were similar.