Association of Agrometeorologists

Yield prediction model of rice in Bulsar district of Gujarat

V.S. CHAUHAN, A.M. SHEKH, S.K. DIXIT, A.P. MISHRA and SANJAY KUMAR

Efforts were made for utilization of ICT to develop suitable agrometeorological model for rice yield prediction in Bulsar district of Gujarat. Six weather variables viz. bright sunshine hours (X1), rainfall (X2), maximum temperature (X3), minimum temperature (X4), morning relative humidity (X5) and afternoon relative humidity (X6) were analyzed for the crop weather relationship to develop regression models. Five approaches were used for fitting of the models i.e. week wise, stage wise, period wise, week number as weight and correlation coefficient as weight. The sowing of rice is mainly concentrated around the second week of June in Gujarat. Hence, the data pertaining to weather parameters for the period 23rd to 42nd meteorological standard weeks (MSW) were included in the present investigation. Four out of the five approaches, which were used for fitting the models, models fitted with stage wise, period wise, week number as weight and correlation coefficient as weight approaches could not be identified as acceptable models. Only one, 18 week model fitted with week wise approach which provided earlier rice yield prediction (2 weeks before harvest) and explained higher variation in rice yield (Adjusted R2 = 99.8%) is preferred.

Rice productivity, agrometeorologicalmodel, stepwise regression, weather parameters