Showers continue to flatten their hopes of a good harvest

THANJAVUR: Sporadic rain across Thanjavur district on Wednesday night brought the farmers' cup of woes to an overflow. The ryots, who were already worried about crop loss due to the recent rains, were much upset seeing lodging of paddy crop at several fields.

In the 24 hours that ended at 8.30 am on Thursday, Tiruvidaimarudur recorded the highest rainfall of 84 mm, causing much damage to crops. Crops that had reached tillering stage in places like Puthur near Ammapettai, Pasupathikovil, were badly affected by the showers.

In Puthur, many farmers were seen using diesel pump sets to flush out stagnant water from their paddy fields on Thursday. Selvaraj, one of the farmers, said they are desperate to save even a portion of their crop and are unmindful of spending some money to hire diesel motors.

P Senthilkumar, a farmer from Ammapettai, said yield will suffer big time owing to lodging of crop. "Farmers who harvested paddy crop were shocked to see that they could not get  even 50 per cent of the normal yield," he said, adding that enumeration of crop damage done so far was also incomplete and far from correct.

"Crop damage in the nearby Tiruvarur district was shown around 100 per cent. But, in Thanjavur district, the crop damage was calculated only at 8,550 hectares, which is not even 10 per cent," Senthilkumar rued.

Rainfall recorded in other places (in mm) are: Anaikkarai-81, Manjalaru head -67, Kumbakonam-49, Madukkur-30, Pattukkottai-21, Vettikkadu-16.