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Agro Climate Research Centre, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India
2
Department of Agronomy, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India
ABSTRACT
Collected monthly rainfall data for 90 years (1911-2000) from India Meteorological Department (IMD) were
used to analyse the Conditional Probability (CP). Ten years daily rainfall data (2004-2013) were also collected from IMD
for computing effective rainfall. Crop water requirements of selected dryland crops of three districts
(Coimbatore, Dharmapuri and Thoothukudi) were collected from the literature and used for computing CP. The study
revealed that under dry land situation for both Coimbatore and Thoothukudi districts, successful crop production is
rainfall during South West Monsoon (SWM) season was 54 per cent and hence, horse gram is suggested. The effective
rainfall was 313, 321 and 335 mm for NEM seasons of Coimbatore, Dharmapuri and Thoothukudi districts with a CP of
68, 49 and 72 per cent respectively. During NEM, farmers can opt for growing either pulses or sorghum for harvesting
80 to 90 per cent of potential yields. The CP for water requirement (mm) for pulse crop was 55 and 68 per cent for
Coimbatore and Thoothukudi districts respectively for NEM season. The CP for water requirement for horse gram was
74 per cent during SWM and 55 per cent during NEM season for Dharmapuri district.
Original Article
assured only during North East Monsoon (NEM) season. For Dharmapuri district the CP of getting 363 mm of effective
Received: Aug 29, 2016; Accepted: Sep 19, 2016; Published: Sep 22, 2016; Paper Id.: IJASROCT201624
INTRODUCTION
In agricultural planning, rainfall variability has to be considered critically, to take any farm decisions like
crop selection, time of sowing, intercultural operations, fertilizer application etc.,. The rainfed / dry land
agro-ecology is characterized as vulnerable to important agricultural operations and they move around soil
moisture availability (Deka and Nath, 2000). Probability analysis can be used for predicting the occurrence of
future events of rainfall from the available data with the help of statistical methods (Kumar and Kumar, 1989).
Past rainfall record analysis may be a handy tool for future rainfall probability projections, which alternatively can
be of immense importance to rainfed agricultural system (Rai et al., 2014). Conditional probability is useful in
predicting the receipt of particular quantity of rainfall for carrying out specific agricultural operations. All along
conditional probability was used to find out the probability of getting particular quantity of rainfall to carryout
dryland farm operations. But so far the parameters namely effective rainfall and crop water requirement have not
been considered in the past for computing their conditional probability for crop planning. Under this situation
present study was under taken to preciously undertake crop planning for dry lands.
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208
CPI =
Where,
CPI = Conditional Probability Index
= Mean rainfall of the concerned season
X= Required rainfall (Either effective rainfall or water requirement of crops)
SD = Standard deviation of the data set
Since the resultant value does not fall under normal distribution it has to be referred to Z table and multiplied by
100 to find out the actual probability in percentage. The main points to be considered are
If the resultant value of the formula given above was positive, the corresponding value may be referred to Z
table and multiplied by 100. This gives conditional probability in percentage.
If the resultant value was negative, the corresponding Z table value was deducted from unity (1) and multiplied
by 100. This gives the conditional probability in percentage.
Conditional Probability Analysis for Effective Rainfall and Water Requirement of Selected Dryland
Crops of Coimbatore, Dharmapuri and Thoothukudi Districts of Tamil Nadu for Crop Planning
209
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210
Crop water
requirement (mm)
Maize
620
Sorghum
500
Pulses
350
Cotton
700
Finger millet
600
Horse gram
300
SWM: South West Monsoon
Coimbatore
NEM
2.56
15.39
55.17
-
Thoothukudi
NEM
12.0
33.0
68.0
4.7
-
CONCLUSIONS
The study brought very scientific information that the conditional probability for effective rainfall could be
preciously used for crop planning and the results can be get validated from the results of computing conditional probability
for crop water requirement. Based on the strength of the discussion given above for Coimbatore district similar to
Thoothukudi district, successful crop was assured during North east monsoon season with lesser crop production risk.
Crops cannot be suggested during South west monsoon season for Coimbatore and Thoothukudi districts. For Dharmapuri
district, mixed cropping or inter cropping of long duration red gram + sorghum + mochai (pulse) can be suggested.
Alternatively finger millet can be grown during South west monsoon season and after its harvest horse gram can be grown
considering the probability and quantum of effective rainfall observed.
Conditional Probability Analysis for Effective Rainfall and Water Requirement of Selected Dryland
Crops of Coimbatore, Dharmapuri and Thoothukudi Districts of Tamil Nadu for Crop Planning
211
REFERENCES
1.
2.
Ahmad, M. and Mishra, R. D. (1987). Manual on irrigation agronomy. New Delhi: Oxford & IBH Publishing Company.
Blaney, H.F., and Criddle, W.D. (1950). Determining the water requirements in irrigated areas from climatological and
irrigation data. U.S. Dept. Agril. Soil Cons., Res., TP 96, p. 48.
3.
Deka, R.L. and Nath, K.K. (2000). Rainfall analysis for rainfed crop planning in the Upper Brahmaputra valley zone of Assam.
Journal of Agrometeorology, 2, 47-53.
4.
Gupta, S.K., Tejwani, K.G and Ram Babu. (1972). Effective rainfall of Dehradun under irrigated conditions. Symposium on
soil and water management, ICAR, held at Hissar, March 11-13,1969. pp.62-70.
5.
Kumar, D. and Kumar, S. (1989). Rainfall distribution pattern using frequency analysis. Journal of Agriltural Engineering,
26(1), 33-38.
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Rai, S.K., Kumar, S., Rai, A.K., Satyapriya and Palsaniya, D.R. (2014). Climate change, variability and rainfall probability for
crop planning in few districts of Central India. Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, 4, 394-403.
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Veeraputhiran, R., Karthikeyan, R., Geethalakshmi, V., Selvaraju, R., Sundarsingh, S. D. and Balasubramaniyan, T. N. (2003)
Crop planning Climate Atlas, Manual. Coimbatore: A. E. Publications
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