Indian Winter Crops Face Critical Weather Crossroad
By Andrew Owen and Drew Lerner
Kansas City, January 10 (World Weather Inc.) – India’s winter crops have been faced with some challenges this autumn and early winter. Little to no rain fell once the monsoon season ended and the lack of rain was compounded by warmer than usual temperatures during a large part of the planting and establishment season. Some crops are rated poorly and are facing a critical crossroad in the next few weeks. Significant rain 
and milder temperatures must evolve to provide a jumping board for much higher yields. If the region stays notably dry with a warm bias production could spiral downward.
The main winter crop production region in northern and central India reported little rain once the southwest monsoon season ended. Although these areas do not normally receive excessive rainfall, there is usually enough rain to supplement irrigation. The beginning of October through the end of December was drier or much drier than normal in many areas this year. Moisture primarily came from irrigation, which is not normally a problem. However, temperatures were often above average in October and November with a few days of warm weather in December as well. The warm weather and lack of supplemental rain lowered water storage levels and more importantly left crop development in unirrigated areas stressed with plant sizes and vegetative growth more subdued than usual.
Many farmers are concerned over the lack of moisture especially with reproduction coming up very soon. Northern and central India will receive little rain of significance during the next two weeks, although there is still some potential for the 
outlook to change.
The Vegetative Health Index clearly shows how stressed the nation’s vegetation has become in recent weeks. Unirrigated crops are not doing well and need a little rain to perform as well as possible during reproduction. Irrigated crops need rain too and always perform best when natural rain falls even if it is only light. The irrigated crops, however, are in better shape than the dryland fields, as one would expect. Crop failure is certainly not a threat for the irrigated crops.
Gujarat and southern Rajasthan were dry from October 1 – December 31, 2015. Other locations from western Madhya Pradesh through Uttar Pradesh and a few in far northern India reported a trace to 1.10 inches with a local amount of 1.45 inches in northern Uttar Pradesh. Most of the significant precipitation that occurred was confined to a small region, but there were a few locations that received enough rain to support relatively good plant establishment. Most of these better 
off locations were scattered across eastern Rajasthan and in northeastern Madhya Pradesh. Since then, however, conditions have deteriorated.
Temperatures in the last calendar quarter of 2015 were often above or well above average. The lack of rain and warm weather severely depleted soil moisture in dryland areas and the heat stressed many crops that were trying to establish with limited soil moisture. Some of the irrigated land had trouble keeping moisture in the soil during October and November because of strong evaporation and a few farmers decided to plant late when the opportunity for rain and cooler weather is often better. Water storage levels also decreased at a more rapid pace due to the warm and dry weather.
There was only a two week period of mild to cool weather in December that eased some of the drying and crop stress, but that was not enough to bring crop establishment and production potential back to normal.
Almost all of India’s wide variety of crops have been impacted by the limited precipitation and warm weather. However, the Vegetative Health Index suggests portions of the eastern and southern winter grain, oilseed and pulse country was being most adversely impacted. The driest and most stressed crops seem to be located in northern Telangana, central Maharashtra and central Madhya Pradesh to southern Uttar Pradesh and in a few Bihar and West Bengal locations.
Rajasthan is the largest producer of rapeseed while neighboring areas in Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana, and western sections of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh produce the rest. Wheat is grown across northern and central India. Central and southern India produces most of the winter sorghum and groundnuts. Pulse crops are produced in many areas across India, as well, with a highly concentrated pulse production region being in northeastern Madhya Pradesh and neighboring Uttar Pradesh – an area that the Vegetative Health Index suggests is most stressed by dryness.
Another region of greater winter crop stress relative to normal may be occurring from central Maharashtra into northern Karnataka and northwestern Telangana. These areas also suffered with dryness during the summer.
The satellite imagery above not only suggests there are some pockets of stressed crops, but it also suggests some very good conditions may be present in Rajasthan northern Gujarat, western Madhya Pradesh, southern Punjab, northwestern Uttar Pradesh and a part of Haryana. The implications of this satellite derived product is that some of India is hurting more than others and because a fair amount of the nation irrigates the winter crop production will still be favorable, although down somewhat from other years because of the very warm conditions of October and November.
The next few weeks are critical for India’s dryland winter crop production. Rain is needed in the balance of January to stimulate some improvement in winter crop conditions prior to reproduction which is mostly a February event. Timely rain will have to occur throughout February to assure the best possible yield potentials.
India would suffer most from the combination ongoing dryness in the next few weeks and very warm to hot temperatures during reproduction. Hot weather during reproduction would hurt India’s crops more than any other event.
World Weather, Inc. does not believe hot weather will occur this year in February. A milder temperature regime is anticipated. Temperatures should be close to normal with a slight cooler bias at times.
There is still potential for rain to fall across India’s winter crop areas in the next few weeks. A succession of weather systems in the Middle East will continue marching to the east, but these events have been dissipating as they enter India. World Weather, Inc. believes there will be some improvement in the successes rate for weather events to reach into India’s winter crop areas during the latter part of this month and in February. Confidence is not high, but there is a fair chance that timely relief may still occur prior to and during reproduction. However, the most important part of the forecast is the lack of heat during reproduction and that will help irrigated crops perform relatively well.
The bottom line is that portions of India have lost some production potential this year, but the situation is far from a disaster. Crops in northeastern Madhya Pradesh and neighboring Uttar Pradesh appear to have the largest problem and production may be more significantly lower there. The region is a wheat, lentil and other pulse production region and will require greater rain than many other areas in the next few weeks to reverse the current trend and save production potentials.
The situation will be closely monitored, but if dryness continues irrigated crops might still perform relatively well without any more excessive heat. Dryland crops need rain to perk the crop up for reproduction and that is what will be closely monitored over the next few weeks.
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