HORTICULTURAL CROPS

India has made a good place for itself on the Horticulture Map of the World with a total annual production of horticultural crops touching over 1490 million tones during 1999-00. The horticultural crops cover about 9 per cent of the total area contributing about 24.5 per cent of the gross agricultural output in the country. However, the productivity of fruits and vegetables grown in the country is low as compared to developed countries. The information with regard to cropping pattern in horticultural crops particularly vegetables and tuber crops is not compiled and readily available. However, the constraints in production in these crops and zones/states of cultivation of these crops is given briefly.
Vegetable Crops

Vegetable crops in India are grown from the sea level to the snowline. The entire country can broadly be divided into six vegetable growing zones:-

1. Temperate Zone : Jammu & Kashmir,Himachal Pradesh, upperUttranchal and Punjab,Darjeeling hill area of WestBengal, Nilgiri hills areas of Tamil Nadu, ArunachalPradesh and Sikkim.

2. Northwestern subtropical zone : Haryana, parts of Punjab,Uttar Pradesh, MadhyaPradesh and Bihar.

3. Northeastern subtropical zone : Most parts of Bihar,northern parts of WestBengal, Meghalaya, Assam and Nagaland.

4. Central tropical zone : Gujarat, most parts of Madhya Pradesh,Maharashtra, Western part of West Bengal, Tripura,Manipur and part of Mizoram.

5. Southern tropical zone : Andhra Pradesh,Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and part of Kerala.

6. Coastal humid tropical zone : Coastal areas of Kerala,Andhra Pradesh, WestBengal and Orissa.

Constraints in vegetables production:-

1. Lack of planning in Production.
2. Non-availability of seeds of improved varieties.
3. High cost of basic production elements.
4. Inadequate plant protection measures and nonavailability of resistant varieties.
5. Weak marketing facilities.
6. Transportation limits.
7. Post harvest losses.
8. Abiotic stresses.