Sowing in cotton growing areas of the province is behind the schedule and is moving at snail pace due to poor availability of water.
The water remains major constraint as the water flow in canals and watercourses remains much below their designed discharge, which resulted in introduction of rotation system. However, sowing is continuing in areas of sweet water zone where shallow tube-wells have been set up by the growers.
The agriculture extension people, in view of the understanding given by the irrigation staff, are expecting that the situation would be improved in early May.
The water flow in Rohri Canal has been recorded at 7,833 cusecs against the designed discharge of 10,887 while the water flow in
Nara Canal, the main canal irrigating the cotton growing areas of the province, is much below to its design discharge where 15 days rotation system has been introduced.
The water discharge at barrages is also below the agreed discharge, which means the cotton crop once again remains under water stress.
By 30th April, the cotton sown was at around 0.112 million hectares, while sowing is in progress. Although fertiliser is available and the crop condition is good and free from pest infestation at this stage yet the water availability in the provincial irrigation network is not
improved, it would be a difficult task to achieve the target of three
million bales fixed by the Sindh agriculture department.
The experts termed the cotton target over ambitious and difficult to achieve, particularly when the
extension media service failed to launch a campaign to provide guidance with regard to quality seed, fertiliser and other technology introduced to minimise the loss of available water.
Comments
Comments are closed.