Crop weather relationship and studies on the effect of weather fluctuations on rice production in Raipur district

The present investigation “Crop Weather Relationship and Studies on the effect of weather fluctuations on rice production in Raipur district” was conducted at the Department of Agricultural Meteorology, College of Agriculture, Raipur (Chhattisgarh). The state-level statistics project a strong increasing trend in rice acreage, production and productivity. The rice area, production and productivity are increasing annually by 24,000 ha, 263,000 metric tonnes and 44 kg ha^-1 respectively. Correlation analysis has been worked out between grain yield and weather variables at various growth stages of rice for MTU-1010 variety. Only P-III (Panicle initiation to heading/emergence) stage was found to have significant results. Rainfall revealed significant negative correlation and maximum temperature, diurnal temperature range and bright sunshine hours revealed significant positive correlation with grain yield. The phenophase-wise thresholds and optimum weather range of individual weather variables responsible for above average (high), average (optimum) and below average (low) yields were analysed for zonal check MTU-1010 variety of rice. Multiple linear regression model was developed to predict the grain yield of rice at P-III stages of crop growth. The model only explained about 21.3% of the variability in the yield by linear functions during panicle initiation to heading/emergence stage. This suggests that other factors not included in the model have a significant impact on the final yield leading to differences between predicted and actual values.