Farmland management and irrigation 2016

• More than half of the cultivated area was ploughed.
• Conservation tillage accounted for nearly one third and sowing in untilled soil made up less than one tenth of the total cultivation area.
• Approximately 45 per cent of the utilised agricultural area was covered by crop plants in winter 2015–2016. Nearly one fifth of the agricultural area was covered by plant residues or stubble, and one tenth was conservation tilled. In all nearly 80 per cent of the area was covered by plant material or was conservation tilled. A little over 20 per cent of the agricultural area was bare.
• Approximately one quarter of all manure spread on fields was solid manure and three quarters were slurry or other liquid manure.
• More than 40 per cent of slurry were injected during spreading, and roughly 13 per cent were spread on the surface using a trailing shoe or a similar spreader. The proportion of band spreading was 15 per cent and that of broadcast spreading was nearly 30 per cent.
• Of all solid manure, approximately 75 per cent were incorporated after spreading. Nearly two thirds of all slurry spread by means of band or broadcast spreading were incorporated.
• In 2016, approximately 8,000 hectares of the field and horticultural area were irrigated. The irrigable area is nearly seven times higher than the irrigated area.
• Sprinkler irrigation is used on more than 80 per cent, drip irrigation is used on 18 per cent and subirrigation is used on 13 per cent of all irrigating farms. Nearly all water used in irrigation is comprised of surface water.
• 12 percent of the utilised agricultural area was grown in monoculture in the years 2014–2016 that is, the same crop was grown in all the three years (other than grassland or multiannual horticultural or fallow crops).

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