Forecasting Wheat Crop Statistics with the Use of Space Technology and Ground Based Information of Uttarakhand State

Abstract

Wheat is an economically important Rabi crop for the state, which is grown on around 26% of total available agriculture area in the state. There is a variation in productivity of wheat crop in hilly and tarai region. The agricultural productivity is less in hilly region in comparison of tarai region due to terrace cultivation, traditional system of agriculture, small land holdings, variation in physiography, top soil erosion, lack of proper irrigation system etc. Pre-harvest acreage/yield/production estimation of major crops is being done with the help of conventional crop cutting method, which is biased, inaccurate and time consuming. Remote Sensing data with multi-temporal and multi-spectral capabilities has shown new dimension in crop discrimination analysis and acreage/yield/production estimation in recent years. In view of this, Uttarakhand Space Applications Centre (USAC), Dehradun with the collaboration of Space Applications Centre (SAC), ISRO, Ahmedabad and Uttarakhand State Agriculture Department, have developed different techniques for the discrimination of crops and estimation of pre-harvest wheat acreage/yield/production. IRS (Indian Remote Sensing Satellites), LISS-III, LISS-IV satellite data of Rabi season for the year 2013-14 along with ground data were used for acreage/production estimation. Results were compared with Bureau of Estimation Statistics (BES). For yield estimation, a relationship has been found out between MNDVI values and Yield collected from ground. To get the production estimation, estimated yield multiplied by acreage of crop per hectare. Result shows deviation for acreage estimation from BES is around 1.6% estimation and deviation for production estimation is around 2.9 %, The estimated data has been provided to State Agriculture department for their use. To forecast production before harvest facilitate the formulation of workable marketing strategies leading to better export/import of crop in the state, which will help to lead better economic condition of the state. Yield estimation would help agriculture department in assessment of productivity of land for specific crop. Pre-harvest wheat acreage/production estimation, is useful to facilitate the reliable and timely estimates and enable the administrators and planners to take strategic decisions on import-export policy matters and trade negotiations.