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India Meteorological Department (IMD), Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) in collaboration with Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR), State Agriculture Universities (SAUs) , Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) and other organizations is rendering weather forecast based District level Agrometeorological Advisory Service (AAS) for benefits of farmers in the country under the centrally sponsored scheme ‘Atmosphere & Climate Research-Modelling Observing Systems & Services (ACROSS) ’ of MOES. AAS, popularly known as Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa (GKMS) provides advance weather information along, with crop specific agromet advisories to the farming community by using state of the art instruments and technology through efficient delivering mechanism of the information which ultimately enables farmers to take appropriate actions at farm level. The various components of GKMS viz. observing weather, its monitoring and forecast; crop specific advisory bulletin generation and dissemination; outreach and feedback have been/are being digitized to support integrating all the components of information generation and action suggested linked to these information. An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based Agromet Decision Support System is developed for automation of the services provided under GKMS. This includes a dynamic framework to link the information of weather forecast, real time weather observation, crop-weather calendar etc. to translate weather forecast into actionable farm advisories for efficient farm level decision making in India. Apart from this, effort is being made to develop recent technology driven tools to estimate future yield of crops and prepare an irrigation schedule without a need of multiple parameters.

The weekly aphid population on timely sown mustard crop and daily weather parameters recorded at ICAR-Directorate of Rapeseed–Mustard Research, Bharatpur and Hisar stations, during rabi seasons of 2003-04 to 2013-14 were used to develop forewarning model for aphid. In most of the cases, the appearance of population and its peak activity occurred during 51 standard meteorological week (SMW) and 8 SMW. The study revealed that the thermal time or growing degree days (GDD) consistently explained the aphid multiplication significantly in all seasons. The impact of other weather parameters on pest population was observed to be significant only in some seasons. The aphid population increased exponentially with increase in GDD. Further, the exponential coefficient varied among the varieties. The population build up was compared with the model predicted values in three common species (Brassica juncea, B. rapa ssp. sarson and B. napus) grown at two stations. The results revealed that the predicted values derived using the model, were in close agreement with those of the observed.

Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT v4.5) Cropping System Model (CSM) was used to study the impact of climate change and variability on productivity of different kharif (rice, maize, jowar and bajra) and rabi crops (wheat and barley) at Varanasi. Keeping in view the observed trends in climate variability, productivity of different kharif and rabi crops were simulated under plausible synthetic climatic scenarios of changes in temperature, solar radiation and carbon dioxide. Productivity of kharif crops viz. rice, maize, jowar and bajra and rabi crops viz. wheat, and barley decreased with an increase in temperature or a decrease in solar radiation above normal. However, productivity of different kharif and rabi crops increased under expected enhanced CO2 concentrations. Highest productivity decreased in barley crop (40.7%) of rabi season and minimum in rice crop (5%) of kharif season with an increase of 3.0 0C in temperature from normal. Whereas, maximum productivity decreased in barley crop (5.0%) of rabi season and minimum in jowar crop (1.8%) of kharif season with a decrease of 2.5 per cent in solar radiation from normal. Highest productivity increase in barley crop (58.2%) of rabi season and lowest in jowar crop (4.2%) of kharif season were simulated under expected enhanced CO2 concentration of 660 ppm. The maximum decrease in productivity of barley crop (45%) in rabi season and minimum in rice crop (7%) in kharif season were simulated when a decrease in temperature by 3 0C and solar radiation by 2.5 per cent from normal. Highest counter-balance on productivity of rice crop (13%) in kharif season and lowest in barja crop (-23%) of kharif season were simulated when an increase in temperature by 3 0C from normal under expected enhanced CO2 concentration of 660 ppm.

The InfoCrop v 1.1 model was calibrated and validated with experimental data of 3 cultivars of rice (NDR-97, NDR-359 and Swarna Sub-1) conducted during 2002-2012 at Kumarganj, Faizabad (U.P.). The model performance was evaluated using MAE, MBE, RMSE and it was observed that InfoCrop model was able to predict the growth parameters like days taken to anthesis, maximum leaf area index, biomass and yield with reasonably good accuracy (error % less than 10).

The present study was conducted by using data from the experiment carried out at Crop Research Station, N. D. University of Agriculture & Technology, Bahraich (U. P.) during kharif 2006 and 2007. The experiment was conducted with three sowing dates in kharif season with one cultivar (HQPM-1). Sowing dates of experimental crop were 25 May, 15 June and 5 July. Genetic coefficients required for the CERES-Maize V 4.0 model for simulation of the growth, yield and yield attributes of maize crop have been derived for maize cultivar HQPM-1 for this agroclimatic zone. Simulated values obtained were validated against observed values of field experiment during kharif 2008. Results revealed that the simulated values of anthesis, physiological maturity, yield and yield attributes (like stalk, number of grains and test weight) were fairly well with measured values within the error percentage of 3.5, 6.5, 2.8, 23.8, 12.3 and 12.4%, respectively.