THANJAVUR: Even as Samba paddy harvest is over only in about 65 per cent area in Thanjavur district, farmers commenced the cultivation of pulses and summer paddy. Pulses cultivation has doubled this year compared to the last.
Samba and Thalady paddy have been cultivated in around 1.37 lakh hectares in Thanjavur district this year, and harvest has completed in 90,000 hectares.
Following the harvest,farmers started cultivating pulses and summer paddy. According to an Agriculture department official, black gram has been cultivated as rice fallow pulse, on 21,230 hectares so far this year. This is more than twice the coverage last year.
As farmers expect timely opening of Mettur dam, they are going in for short term pulse crop this year too, officials said. The campaign taken up by the district administration to increase rice fallow pulses also helped to increase coverage, they added. Black gram seed is being distributed at 50 per cent subsidy.
R Sukumaran, a leading farmer from Kakkarai near Orathanadu, said he had gone for black gram cultivation after the harvest of Samba paddy. Farmers prefer ADT-5, Vamban-8, and Vamban-9 varieties of black gram. Groundnut has also been cultivated on about 7,000 hectares in the district.
Several farmers also started summer paddy cultivation after the harvest of Samba. "Those farmers with borewells to pump groundwater have started raising nurseries," said Sami Natarajan, a farmer from Thennamanadu in Orathanadu.
S Sivakumar of Manathidal also said farmers in his area are preferring summer paddy instead of Kuruvai.
"As the harvest of Kuruvai is often affected by the onset of northeast monsoon, farmers in our area with pumpsets prefer summer paddy. This will not get affected by pest attack as there would be scorching heat during cultivation. Often there would be occasional summer rains, which would help summer paddy," Sivakumar said.
Expenses for harvest machines is also less for summer paddy. This is because the ordinary tyre type machines are enough as the field would be dry during harvest, Sivakumar who urged the district administration to provide loan for summer paddy, said.
An official said the yield of summer paddy would be good.
Though the normal area for summer paddy has been marked as 3,000 hectares in Thanjavur district, of late the area covered has been increasing. Last year, summer paddy was cultivated in 17,863 hectares. This year, it is expected to be around 16,000 hectares, officials said. The farmers are also into summer paddy for producing seed for Kuruvai crop. Around 30,000 tonnes of Kuruvai seeds are used to be exported to other districts, officials added.