Evaluation of Major Kharif Crop Varieties To Climate Variability in Vertisols of Hadoti Region of Rajasthan

Demonstrations of improved technologies along with existing technologies were conducted at farmer's field during kharif 2011. The soils of selected demonstration plots were clay loam with medium in available nitrogen and phosphorus and high in available potassium. Short duration or drought resistant crop varieties of soybean (JS 9560, JS 9305 and RKS 24) and maize (PEHM 2), drought tolerant varieties of black gram (KU 963 and PU 31) and high water tolerant variety of sesamum (Ujjawal) were demonstrated at farmer's field along with their local check varieties. All the recommended cultivation practices were followed to raise the crop. Results revealed that the soybean variety JS 95–60 took minimum number of days for attaining maturity whereas variety JS 9305 took 13 days more to increase its yield by 0.70 q/ha from the variety JS 9560. The short duration maize variety (PEHM 2) performed better with 11.6 per cent increase in yield over the check variety. The drought tolerant black gram variety proved better for recording 35 per cent increase in yield over the check variety. The sesamum variety (Ujjawal) proved better for high rainfall situation with almost double the yield over the check variety. Selection of improved varieties for extreme weather conditions will help the farmers to cope with such extremes and taking good yields for better returns over the existing technologies.