Page 208 - index

potato, banana, areca nut, turmeric and ginger. Tea, of course, is the pride of Assam. Rice is the
most important food crop grown in about 61.2 and 90.5% of gross and net cropped area,
respectively. Among spice crop chillies, turmeric and ginger share most area under spices (0.94
lakh ha). Banana is the most important fruit though the area under pineapple, orange and Assam
lemon cannot be ignored. Fruit occupy 1.32 lakh ha of area. Vegetable cultivation has got
momentum in recent times (2.66 lakh ha) due to high profitability of which Rabi vegetables are
more important (69.8%) cole crop, tomato, brinjal, ridge gourd, cowpea, beans are popular. The
dominant major cropping systems are rice–fallow, rice–toria, Kharif vegetables–Rabi vegetables
etc. Rice is grown in varied ecosystem viz.rainfed/ irrigated upland, lowland, flood–free and
flood–prone medium land, deep water and hill ecosystem. Among the predominant crop
sequence the following viz.winter rice-toria-autumn rice, winter rice-wheat/toria/pulses, winter
rice-vegetables-jute and winter rice–autumn rice are the main crop sequence followed in the
rice–based cropping system.

Fertilizer consumption

Regarding fertilizer consumption, small farmers generally apply very low quantity of N, P and K
chemical fertilizers. In Assam, secondary fertilizers are not used. However, they apply single
super phosphate as source of phosphorus through which some quantities of sulphur is added to
soil. In case of micronutrient application, mostly borax and micronutrient mixture mainly
multiplex are applied by medium and large farmers for vegetables, coconut etc. The fertilizer
consumption for the year 2016-17 for NPK fertilizer are 153506, 37614 and 39845 tonnes and
-1
the fertilizer consumption in the state is estimated to be 55.03 kg ha , and consumption of
ZnSO 4 was 94 and 2,265 tonnes in Kharif and Rabi season, respectively for the year 2016-17.