Rain-hit Karnataka farmers pin hopes on new crop varieties

Breeding a better crop

After three harrowing years of rain-damaged harvest, Hanumanthappa Gouda is now banking on Dh-257, a new groundnut variety developed by the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad.

Heavy rains in the second week of August — the peak season for the harvest of Kharif crops — had dealt a blow to farmers in North Karnataka who saw nearly 30% of their standing crops damaged due to waterlogging in fields.

Waterlogging in fields during the harvest season is called wet drought.

Now, the UAS has developed 12 varieties of Kharif crops, including pulses and cereals, which are resistant to ‘wet drought’ and can be harvested 15 days early. The varieties were unveiled at the krishi mela in Dharwad on Sunday.

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Hanumanthappa said he incurred huge losses in the last three years due to flash floods. He has been cultivating groundnut on three acres of land at Yadwad village in Dharwad taluk. During the normal season, he gets 28 quintals of yield per hectare but due to waterlogged fields, he could harvest only 16 quintals of groundnut last year.

“UAS experts had visited several oilseed-growing fields in the taluk and farmers had demanded a groundnut variety resistant to wet drought. This year, they came up with Dh-257, a high-yielding crop,” he said.

According to a crop damage survey by the state agriculture department this year, standing crops — particularly green gram, cotton, black gram and maize — on 2.87 lakh hectares of land were damaged, forcing farmers to seek compensation.

Apart from groundnut, the UAS has developed new varieties for maize, sorghum, soya, black gram, sugarcane, safflower and fodder cowpea. It also launched 59 agricultural technologies at the krishi mela.

UAS Vice-Chancellor R Basavarajappa and Director of Extension P S Hugar said the rain pattern has changed in three years, with several districts in North Karnataka facing flash floods. They said the new varieties of crops are tolerant to salinity and resistant to leaf spot disease, which is usually found in groundnut due to high moisture content in the ground.

Accordingly, the UAS has released groundnut varieties DBG-3 and DBG-4, which have a duration of 95 to 100 days and are resistant to late leaf spot disease. Dh-256 is a dual-season groundnut variety which is tolerant to mid-season drought and foliar disease. Dh-257 has a yield of 4,000 kg per hectare and is tolerant to drought and salinity. It will be a changemaker, said Hugar.

Similarly, UAS has developed improved varieties like GH-150125 (maize), CSH-42 (sorghum), DSb-34 (soya), DBG-16 (black gram), etc which are resistant to waterlogging and give high yields.

Hugar said these varieties are suitable for Maharashtra and Karnataka.

Manjunath Onkari, a green gram grower from Garag who lost 40% of the harvest to rains in the last two years, said he wants to purchase DGGV-2, a variety which allows farmers to harvest early. This improved crop has a maturity period of 75 days compared to the normal 95 days, he explained.