Estimation of rice yield through weather factors in a dry sub-humid region

Abstract

Rice is staple cereal for a vast population in the country. Naturally it is, therefore, grown in varied climates from per-humid to semi-arid areas. An attempt has been made in this paper to identify weather factors and their duration, which exert influence on the crop growth and the yield for rice grown in the southwestern parts of Madhya Pradesh, a typical dry sub-humid area. Correlation technique has been adopted for this purpose. Apart from routine meteorological parameters, extent to which monthly water need of the plant (i.e., evapotranspiration) is met by monthly rainfall and called efficiency ratio has also been introduced in the analysis. This analysis thus brings out relationship between crop during its various growth phases with important weather parameters.

The parameters chosen are then utilised to obtain a linear multiple regression. The coefficient of determination obtained was 0.90 explaining 81 per cent of the yield variation.