Nearly every important decision on a farm is a weather decision. When to sow, when to irrigate, when to spray, when to harvest, when to dry, when to sell. Yet most of these decisions are still made on the basis of looking at the sky.
Agricultural weather advisory services exist in India, are free, and are considerably more useful than the general forecast on a news channel.
Where to Get Agricultural Weather Advisories
Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa
The India Meteorological Department, together with agricultural universities and KVKs, issues district-level agrometeorological advisories. These are not just weather forecasts — they translate the forecast into crop-specific advice for your district and the current crop stage.
Advisories are typically issued twice a week and are available through KVKs, agriculture departments, SMS services and mobile apps.
Meghdoot app
Provides location-specific weather and crop advisories in regional languages.
Damini app
Lightning alerts, which is a genuine safety service. Lightning kills a significant number of people working in open fields in India every year.
Mausam app and IMD website
General forecasts, warnings and nowcasts.
Kisan Call Centre
1800-180-1551, which can relay advisory information.
Using a Forecast for Spray Decisions
This is where forecasts most directly save money.
- Do not spray if rain is likely within the rain-fast period of the product. Rain washes it off and the money is gone. Check the label for how long the product needs before rain
- Do not spray in high wind — drift wastes product and risks damage to neighbouring crops
- Spray in the cooler hours. High temperature increases evaporation and can cause crop damage with some products
- Use forecast humidity to anticipate fungal disease risk. Extended humid, overcast periods are when preventive fungicide is worth applying, and dry periods are when it usually is not
Using It for Irrigation
Irrigating the day before significant rainfall wastes water, electricity or diesel, and can waterlog the crop. A two-day forecast is usually enough to avoid this, and over a season the saving is substantial.
Conversely, an extended dry forecast during a critical crop stage is a signal to irrigate before stress sets in rather than after symptoms appear.
Using It for Harvest and Drying
The most damaging weather losses often occur after harvest. Grain drying in the open, a cut crop lying in the field, or produce awaiting transport are all vulnerable.
Checking a three to five day forecast before deciding to harvest, and before spreading grain to dry, prevents most of these losses.
What Forecasts Can and Cannot Do
Being realistic about this matters, because farmers who expect too much stop using forecasts after one wrong prediction.
- Reliable — general conditions over one to three days; broad patterns such as an approaching system or an extended dry spell
- Moderately reliable — rainfall likelihood over three to five days
- Not reliable — exact rainfall amount at a specific field; precise timing of a thunderstorm; seasonal totals as a basis for individual crop decisions
Convective rainfall, which is the dominant type in much of India during the monsoon, is inherently localised. A forecast of rain in your district does not mean rain on your field, and that is a limitation of the physics rather than of the forecaster.
Use forecasts for decisions where being roughly right helps — avoid spraying before likely rain, delay irrigation when rain is probable, do not spread grain when a system is approaching. Do not use them for decisions requiring precision they cannot deliver.
Weather-Based Insurance
Weather-based crop insurance schemes pay out based on measured weather parameters at a reference station rather than on assessed crop loss. Understand which reference station applies to your area, because the payout depends on readings there, not on conditions at your field.
A Practical Habit
Check the district agromet advisory twice a week when it is issued, and check a short forecast before any of these: spraying, irrigating, harvesting, drying, or transporting produce.
That is perhaps five minutes a week, and it prevents the category of loss that farmers find most frustrating — losing a crop or an input to weather that was forecast.
Advisory services and their coverage vary by district. Contact your Krishi Vigyan Kendra to find out which agromet advisory covers your area and how to receive it.
