Kharif 2026 Preparedness: Fertiliser Shortage & El Niño

[Aaditeshwar Seth]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atqcd05h424&t=606s

Important talk by Dr. Ramoo. Given the impending El Nino, the advice is to monitor rainfall and look at forecasts to make sure that dry spells don't exceed 14 days. And to plant drought resistant varieties and less water consuming crops this year. It'll be important to issue advisories soon. 

Doing water conservation structures, especially trenches, soakage pits, and bunds, and de-silting of waterbodies, should also help retain soil moisture. Will be great to come up with a risk map based on expected rainfall deficit, groundwater stress, exposure to rainfed agriculture, and degraded soil. 

Even for real-time tracking, let's see if we can build dynamic maps that update themselves with rainfall data, forecasts, soil moisture, NDVI, etc. 

Anyone up for helping out? 

This paper lists districts that are particularly vulnerable for rice and some crops based on data from earlier El Nino years: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405880723000316

Does anyone know if rainfall deficit maps have been produced? I guess climate model outputs would be available from ECWMF and maybe IMD and IITM as well. 

Adi