Rainfall characteristics of srinagar region of Kashmir valley

Rainfall is a major determinant of agricultural production, especially in rainfed areas. Since the contribution of rainfed agriculture is almost half to the national kitty and about 68 per cent of the sown area is still dependent on rainfall. It is imperative that the prediction of rainfall pattern should be accurate and reliable. Based or the above information one can decide the optimum cropping pattern and plan the strategy to apply irrigation to the crops. In the present study, an attempt has been made to corret it the frequency of drought in terms of rainfall deficiency during weeks, months and cropping seasons for Sri nagar region of Kashmir valley. The analysis of nineteen years shows mean annual rainfall of Srinagar is 945.6 mm with 51.3 percent variation. Study reveals the 10.5 percent of the years were drought, 73.6 percent normal and 15.7 percent were surplus years. In a period of study, about 36.8 percent of total months were dry, 49.5 percent normal and 13.6 percent were surplus months. Probability analysis of drought months indicates that in any year, there are strong chances of occurrence of five drought months with 70 percent probability. Out of 19 years study period, the drought, normal and surplus rainfall weeks were 50.1, 32.5 and 17.9 percent respectively. It was suggested that adoption of short duration varieties with low water requirement crop should be grown. Besides this, the drought resistance field crops may be selected which require less water during tillering and at maturity stage. However, this amount is sufficient enough for high value fruit crops like apple, plum, pear, almond and walnut etc.