Abstract

Rainfed agro-ecologies contribute 67% of the net sown area in India. Inspite of major contribution of rainfed agriculture, low crop yield is caused in the region due to climate change, land degradation, less knowledge of technology and lack of effective crop yield improvement technology. The uncertainty in rainfall and limited irrigation facilities, climate change, soil fertility and moisture reduction affects the crop yield in the region. The current study has done the multivariate statistical analysis of soil and climate data to identify the effect of them on crop yield for kharif and rabi seasons of semi-arid regions of India. The study revealed that these parameters significantly affected the crop yield. The results also showed that along with climate parameters, soil sodium, iron and phosphorus had major effect on crop yield.