Productivity Enhancement among Cereal Crops by Mitigating Climate Change Effect through Deployment of Climate Resilient Varieties in India: Evidence from the Field

Abstract

In the first decade of the new millennium, the declining trends in the yield growth rate in wheat and rice raised serious concerns to increase the productivity and consequently several crop developmental programmes were implemented giving more emphasis to increase varietal and seed replacement rates of newly released varieties. In the present study, attempts have been made to analyse the impact of these schemes through the increase in productivity of cereals (rice and wheat) and coarse cereals (maize, pearl millet and sorghum) during period II (2007–2008 to 2012–2013) over period I (2001–2002 to 2006–2007) by comparing the mean yield through paired t-test. For cereal crops, at national level, during period II the significant average yield gains of 297 kg/ha (wheat) and 242 kg/ha (rice) have been recorded. At state level, in rice significant average yield gains were recorded in Gujarat (249 kg/ha) and Assam (287 kg/ha) and significant yield increase of 246 kg/ha during kharif season was observed during the same period. The significant gains in average yield of wheat are recorded in Haryana (465 kg/ha), Gujarat (415 kg/ha), West Bengal (494 kg/ha), Bihar (315 kg/ha), Uttarakhand (309 kg/ha) and Maharashtra (275 kg/ha) over period I. Overall, significant yield gain has been recorded in kharif season cereals by 266 kg/ha and highly significant yield gain during rabi season by 356 kg/ha. In case of coarse cereals, the significant gains in average yield at national level were recorded in maize (477 kg/ha) and sorghum (141 kg/ha). The remarkable average yield gains during period II were recorded in maize in Tamil Nadu (2432 kg/ha), Andhra Pradesh (1227 kg/ha), West Bengal (1195 kg/ha) and Punjab (876 kg/ha). In pearl millet, in Haryana (489 kg/ha), Uttar Pradesh (351 kg/ha) and Madhya Pradesh (337 kg/ha), while in sorghum significant yield gains have been found during same period in Karnataka (338 kg/ha), Madhya Pradesh (354 kg/ha) and Andhra Pradesh (293 kg/ha) average yield gains recorded during period II. Also, significant yield gain has been found in finger millet (224 kg/ha), small millet (94 kg/ha) and barley (288 kg/ha). The significant productivity gains during rabi (579 kg/ha), kharif (267 kg/ha) and overall 336 kg/ha were found among all coarse cereals. In rice, during both periods and in sorghum during period I the negative significant association was found between average yield and variability in yield. Difference in the variability in yield among all crops studied during both periods was found to be non-significant. The share of climate resilient varieties in indented BS increased from 13.75% in 2014 to >20% in 2015 in rice and in wheat it has been ∼20% during 2014–2015 and 2015–2016.