Water Management in Horticultural Crops

Rain fall variability

• All the agricultural regions are subject to significant temporal and spatial variability.
  
• The fact that water is not evenly distributed throughout the country also places a severe constraint on local availability per capita and also on the availability of the resource on a gross basis.
  
• Seasonally also, the available water resource of India is not evenly distributed. The south west monsoon it contributes to the major precipitation in the country is well known for the vagaries.
  
• The early or late commencement of the monsoon rainfall, prolonged breaks during the month of July or August, the cessation or continuation of rainfall and the rainfall may be very unevenly distributed.
Example of rain fall ( in mm) for three years showing variations


Year	Actual	Normal	Per cent departure
2007-08	1180.2	1194.8	-1.2
2008-09	1075.0	1196.4	-10.1
2009-10	972.8	1195.6	-18.6