Analysis of Onset, Cessation, and Length of the Growing Season and Its Implication for Agricultural Production in Uromi, Edo State

Irregular rainfall limits adequate crop production within the Uromi in south – south agroecological zone of Nigeria. This study was carried out to analyse the rainfall pattern, onset and cessation of rainy season including the length of growing season for agricultural production in Uromi, Edo state. Secondary data collected from NiMET maproom for the period 1991 – 2024 were used. The result revealed a variation in rainfall pattern in the area which led to variation in onset and cessation of rainfall including length of growing season. A very high variability in the onset of rain was observed with a CV of 95%, cessation has a CV of 30.67% indicating a high variability while length of growing season has a low variability with a CV of 3.88%. The trend analysis shows that onset of the rainy season has a negative trend of y = -0.1329x + 9.8556 with an R-squared value of 0.0304. A positive trend was observed for cessation of rain with a best fit line equation y = 0.1134x + 13.369 and a low R 2 of 0.0605 which is discernible trend in the data. The length of growing season has a positive slope (y = 0.2527x + 217.7) and an R 2 of 0.0853. The observed trend in the area may have been triggered off by intrinsic and extrinsic factors. This information is very important to farmers in Uromi in deciding on crop types to be cultivated and on planning sowing dates as a function of observed onset dates. The study recommend Farmers should change/shift their planting period to appropriate time since the onset date has changed in order to avoid crop damage at the early stage, Government should provide the farmers with early matured crop and improved crop varieties, mitigation/adaptation action is highly needed in order to cope with the problem.