Rajasthan Quiz: Agriculture and Livestock of Rajasthan

Mustard is the great rabi oilseed of Rajasthan, sown in October and November across Bharatpur, Alwar, Sawai Madhopur, Tonk and the canal districts of the north-west, and the state harvests more of it than any other.

The district lies in the extreme north-west, where the Gang Canal, opened in the colonial period, and later the Indira Gandhi Canal brought Sutlej and Beas water into country that had been desert.

The Chokla sheep is reared in Churu, Sikar and Jhunjhunu in the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan.

The Central Sheep and Wool Research Institute, an institute of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, works at Avikanagar in Tonk district on sheep and rabbit breeding, wool quality and grazing management.

The Jakhrana goat takes its name from the village of Jakhrana in Alwar district of eastern Rajasthan.

Rajasthan declared the camel its state animal in 2014, a decision meant to arrest the fall in camel numbers as tractors replaced camel carts and grazing land shrank.

Isabgol, the psyllium whose husk is used as a laxative and in medicines, is sown in the cool months after the monsoon and harvested in spring, which makes it a rabi crop.

The Indira Gandhi Canal, first called the Rajasthan Canal, starts at Harike in Punjab, where the Beas joins the Sutlej, and carries that water south-west through a feeder and then a main canal into Hanumangarh, Sri Ganganagar, Bikaner, Jaisalmer and Barmer.

Sojat town in Pali district is the henna capital of India. The shrub needs a hot dry climate and poor soil, both of which the tract offers, and the leaves are dried and powdered in Sojat before being sold across the country and exported.

Although the Indira Gandhi Canal is the most celebrated irrigation work in Rajasthan, canal command covers only a part of the state, mainly the north-west and the Chambal and Mahi tracts.

The Pushkar fair gathers at the Pushkar lake in Ajmer district in the month of Kartik, which falls in October or November, and reaches its climax on the full moon day, Kartik Purnima, when pilgrims bathe in the lake beside the Brahma temple.

Rajasthan runs its cattle breeding farms in the home tract of each breed, so the place names and the breeds go together.