Authors : Navanath K. Agale and Bhalchandra B. Thaware
Page Nos : 236-239
Description :
India has tremendous potential to cultivate onion on small as well as commercial scale. It is the most important cash crop cultivated in large part of country since ancient period. It plays vital role in human diet as well as medicinal importance. India is the second largest onion growing country in the world. In India major onion growing states are Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana. The tremendous climatic variations in the country make it possible to grow wide varieties of onion in different season. National Agricultural Research Centre and National Horticulture Research Development Foundation, National Agriculture Co-operative Marketing Federation (NAFED) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) have taken efforts to systematic development of onion. In India onion is growing by two methods one is sowing and second is transplanting. It is produced in three different seasons namely, early kharif, Kharif and Rabi. Early kharif season starts from mid-June and harvesting is done in August – September. Kharif season starts from early September and harvested during the month of January. Rabi season is starts in the month of November – December and the harvested in the month of February and early March. The cultivation of onion can become economically profitable when get good price in market. Early kharif and kharif season onion is highly perishable so it sold in market at earlier, that time profit of farmer depends on market price. Sometime farmers get big loss due to price fluctuation. Rabi onion is semi-perishable it stores up to four to six months. It means that storage plays important role in marketing of onion. Storage facility and capacity depends on economic condition of farmer. Storage facility and capacity, labour, climatic hazards, export policy of Government, middleman and type of market these are the major problems of onion cultivation. But now a day the onion crop in trouble, the main reason is climate change. It has low productivity. The onion crop is unprofitable. Climate change is the major cause of low production of onion crop worldwide. Fog, dew, unseasonal rainfall, temperature variation, hail storm, cloudiness, this climatic phenomenon occurs due to the climate change. It is major causes to decrease the productivity of onion crop. The above climatic phenomenon invites the various diseases on the onion crop, like Damping-off, Purple Blotch, Onion Smut, Anthracnose, etc. that mean more uses of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, which is very costly. As well as, increasing temperature causes to more irrigation. These effects of climate change also influence the pest and disease occurrences, host-pathogen interactions, distribution and ecology of insects, time of appearance, migration to new places and their overwintering capacity, there by becoming major setback to onion cultivation. Climate change is imbalanced the onion agriculture.
