Cropping pattern in Salem District, Tamil Nadu, India

The quantitative measure of crop distribution is an important analysis to understand the cropping pattern of an area. The multifaceted agriculture practices, bring different crops in fields. The concept of agricultural regionalization is not dividing a land into different fragments but also a method of understanding the agricultural patterns. The existing patterns will strongly show the combinations of physical and socio-economic balance of an area. To map the cropping pattern the following analysis were required they include crop combination, cropping intensity, crop diversification and crop combination. In the present study analysis the above mention analysis, the results suggest that there are fourteen crops widely occupies in the study area. Among the fourteen crops oilseeds, Tapioca, paddy and maize were the top five crops. Cropping intensity result reveals that the highest cropping intensity found in Tharamangalam, Veerapandi, Panamarathupatty. The moderate cropping intensity found in Thalaivasal, Ayothiyapattinam, Yercaud, Omalur, Kadayampatty, Mecheri and Kolathur. The crop diversification indicates that Yercaud, Gangavalli and Thalaivasal shows lower crop diversification, other blocks in the study area have the index value more than 0.7 which indicates that the blocks have high diversification. The crop combination analysis also sight that oils seeds, Maize, Tapioca as fist ranking crop in several blocks, similarly oil seeds, paddy, Tapioca founds as second ranking crop and paddy is found as third ranking crop in the study area. The cropping pattern analysis will provide the agricultural and agro-climatologist to suggest better land use planning of an area.