Why in news?
Sowing Area Coverage of Summer Crops is as follows:
- Rice: About 34.80 lakh ha area coverage under summer rice as compared to 25.26 lakh ha during the corresponding period of last year.
- Pulses: About 8.77 lakh ha area coverage under pulses as compared to 5.44 lakh ha. during the corresponding period of last year.
- Course Cereals: About 9.12 lakh ha area coverage under coarse cereals as compared to 5.49 lakh ha. during the corresponding period of last year.
- Oilseeds: About 8.87 lakh ha area coverage under oilseeds as compared to 7.00 lakh ha. during the corresponding period of last year.
Note: Try to remember the trend, not numbers for Prelims.
Background: Types of Crops
India has three cropping seasons — Rabi, Kharif and Zaid.
Rabi Crops
- Rabi crops are sown in winter from October to December and harvested in summer from April to June.
- Some of the important rabi crops are wheat, barley, peas, gram and mustard.
- Though, these crops are grown in large parts of India, states from the north and north-western parts such as Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh are important for the production of wheat and other rabi crops.
- Availability of precipitation during winter months due to the western Temperate Cyclones help in the success of these crops.
- However, the success of the green revolution in Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and parts of Rajasthan has also been an important factor in the growth of the abovementioned rabi crops.
Kharif Crops
- Kharif crops are grown with the onset of monsoon in different parts of the country and these are harvested in September-October.
Important crops grown during this season are paddy, maize, jowar, bajra, tur (arhar), moong, urad, cotton, jute, groundnut and soyabean.
Some of the most important rice-growing regions are Assam, West Bengal, coastal regions of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Maharashtra, particularly the (Konkan coast) along with Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. - Recently, paddy has also become an important crop of Punjab and Haryana. In states like Assam, West Bengal and Odisha, three crops of paddy are grown in a year. These are Aus, Aman and Boro.
Zaid Crops
- In between the rabi and the kharif seasons, there is a short season during the summer months known as the Zaid season.
- Some of the crops produced during ‘zaid’ are watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber vegetables and fodder crops. Sugarcane takes almost a year to grow.
