Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): In the wake of uneven rainfall in Madhya Pradesh due to the El Nino impact, agriculture department has prepared a contingency plan for Rabi season 2026-27.
The objective is to ensure that farmers do not suffer losses due to vagaries of climate and could mitigate the possible loss by sowing the recommended varieties of crops.
The contingency plan titled “Cropwise and Agri Climatic Zone wise recommended varieties as per water availability for Rabi 2026-27”.
Under this, various regions of state have been divided into 10 agro-climatic zones.
Agro-climatic zone 1 comprises Chhattisgarh plain (Balaghat district) while zone 2 includes Northern Chhattisgarh plain (Mandla, Dindori, Shahdol, Umaria, Anuppur and Sidhi districts).
Agro-climatic zone 3 covers Kamoor plain and Satpura hills (Jabalpur, Katni, Seoni, Panna, Rewa, Satna, Singhrauli, Maihar, Mauganj districts).
Bhopal, Vidisha, Raisen, Damoh and Sagar have been included in agro-climatic zone 5-Vindhya Plain.
For non-irrigated area of climatic zone 5, sowing of wheat variety MPO (J W) 1255 has been suggested. In the areas to be irrigated timely, wheat crop MP 3382 (J W 3382), Pusa Tejas (H I 8759), MP 3465 (J W 3465), G W 513, Pusa Wakula (H I 1636) etc. have been recommended.
Similarly, different varieties of gram, peanut, oil seed have been suggested according to the land type like irrigated, non-irrigated and semi-irrigated.
The plan also recommends practices in the context of agro-climatic change. For instance it suggests practices by keeping changing climatic features of the state.
Notably, Malwa belt in particular received very less rain in this monsoon season. The deficient rainfall is likely to have impact on the Rabi season.
