366 Districtwise wheat and rice yield predictions in eastern Madhya Pradesh December 2017 Journal of Agrometeorology 19 (4) : 366-368 (December 2017) Madhya Pradesh is the leading producer of rice (Oryza sativa L) and wheat (Triticum aestivum L)however, their varieties are more susceptible to climatic stress (NPCC, 2007). Climate change affect their production due to rainfall variability and temperature stress thereby affecting their yield. In eastern Madhya Pradesh, wheat is a major rabi season crop while rice is grown during kharif season under rainfed condition. Change in intensity in solar radiation, temperature and distribution of rainfall provoke physiological reactions that affect crop growth and grain yield in rice (Yoshida and Parao, 1979). Therefore, a proper planning is needed to predict yield in advance as it will help in implementing and formulating of policies related to food procurement, distribution and import-export decisions. In this study, regression equations were developed for predicting district wise wheat and rice yield in different districts of eastern Madhya Pradesh. MATERIAL AND METHODS Seven districts (Balaghat, Jabalpur, Mandla, Narsinghpur, Seoni, Shahdol and Sidhi) of Madhya Pradesh (M.P.) were selected for developing district wise yield prediction equations for rice and wheat crops (Table 1). The daily weather data of the past 30 years (1980 – 2009 ) of maximum and minimum temperatures, morning and afternoon relative humidity and rainfall were collected from Meteorological centre, Bhopal and the Department of physics and agrometeorology, Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Jabalpur, M.P. The district wise reported crop yield data were collected from Commissioner, Land Records, Gwalior, M.P. Weather indices were generated Districtwise wheat and rice yield predictions using meteorological variables in eastern Madhya Pradesh A. K. GIRI, M. BHAN and K.K. AGRAWAL College of Agricultural Engineering, JNKVV, Jabalpur 482004 Madhya Pradesh E-mail: bhan.manish@gmail.com ABSTRACT District wise rice and wheat yield prediction equations were developed for seven districts of eastern Madhya Pradesh using weakly weather data from 1980-2009. The coefficient of determination (R 2 ) varied between 0.4 - 0.78 for rice and 0.6 - 0.92 for wheat in different districts. Model performance was evaluated with independent reported data for year 2010 and 2011. As the deviations for both the years were less than ± 15 per cent, the models can be used for predicting the rice and wheat yields in Madhya Pradesh. Key words : Wheat, rice, forecast grain yield, stepwise regression. Table 1: Geographical Locations of districts Districts Latitude Longitude Altitude (°N) (°E) (M) Balaghat 21°8 80°18 288 Jabalpur 22°08 79°53 411 Mandla 22°59 80°37 445 Narsinghpur 22°91 79°10 347 Seoni 22°08 79°53 670 Shahdol 23°62 81°42 464 Sidhi 24°4 81°9 286 *Note: - Five years average from 2003-04 to 2007-08 Source: Commissioner Land Records, Gwalior using weekly cumulative value for rainfall and weekly average value of the other weather parameters as suggested by Ghosh et. al. (2014). After this the weekly data for all the weather variables selected weeks from sowing to post – flowering (44 th – 12 th standard meteorological week for wheat; 27 th – 34 th week for rice) were used for developing models with crop yield data. The model were developed following methodology described by Ghosh et. al., (2014) as given below; where These notations have their usual meaning as given by Ghosh et. al., (2014). Test criteria were used for analyzing e cT p i i j j ii Z j ii a p i j ij Z ij a A Y               1 ' 1 0 ' ' 1 1 0 0       m w w i X iw X j w ii r j ii Z m w and iw X j iw r ij Z 1 ' ' ' 1