Wheat sowing increases 4% at 32.53 mn hectare so far this rabi season

Wheat sowing has increased by 4 per cent so far this rabi season to 325.35 lakh hectare, while pulses acreage grew 5 per cent to 154.80 lakh hectare on better monsoon rains, according to the government data.

The area under the coverage for paddy is down marginally to 14.83 lakh hectare so far this rabi (winter-sown) season from 15.47 lakh hectare in the corresponding period previous year.

In wheat, the data showed that 325.35 lakh hectare area coverage has been reported so far compared to 313.95 lakh hectare in the same period last year.

The higher area is reported mainly from Madhya Pradesh (10.32 lakh hectare), Bihar (2.33 lakh hectare), and Maharashtra (1.59 lakh hectare), while some states -- including Rajasthan (2.87 lakh hectare) and Uttar Pradesh (2.1 lakh hectare) -- have reported less sowing.

The area under coverage for coarse cereals is down so far at 45.12 lakh hectare as compared to 49.90 lakh hectare in the year-ago period.

However, the sowing area for oilseeds is up at 80.61 lakh hectare so far from 75.93 lakh hectare a year ago.

Total sowing under various rabi crops has increased to 620.71 lakh hectare so far from 603.15 lakh hectare.

The rabi sowing operation starts normally from October after the harvest of kharif (summer-sown) crops. Wheat and mustard are major rabi crops.