Agriculture
Cropping seasons and food grains
Match crops to their season and growing conditions.
Three seasons.
- Rabi: sown in winter (October-December), harvested in summer (April-June). Wheat, barley, peas, gram, mustard.
- Kharif: sown when the monsoon arrives, harvested in September-October. Paddy, maize, jowar, bajra, tur (arhar), moong, urad, cotton, jute, groundnut, soyabean.
- Zaid: a short summer season between the two. Watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber, vegetables, fodder.
Sugarcane takes almost a year to grow.
Why rabi does well in the north-west. Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh grow most of the wheat. Two reasons:
- winter rain brought by western temperate cyclones;
- the Green Revolution, which worked best in Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and parts of Rajasthan.
Rice. The main food of most Indians. India is the second largest producer after China. A kharif crop: it needs high temperature (above 25°C), high humidity and over 100 cm of rain; where rain is less, irrigation helps. It grows in the plains of the north and north-east, coastal areas and deltas. Thanks to canals and tube-wells, drier areas such as Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh now grow it too. Assam, West Bengal and Odisha grow three rice crops a year: Aus, Aman and Boro.
Wheat. The second most important cereal, and the main food in the north and north-west. Read its needs from its calendar: sown in winter, so it needs a cool growing season; ripens in summer, so it needs bright sunshine at ripening. It needs 50 to 75 cm of rain, spread evenly. Two main zones: the north-western Ganga-Satluj plains, and the Deccan's black soil region. Main states: Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan.
Millets: 'coarse', but very nutritious. Jowar, bajra and ragi are called coarse grains, but they are highly nutritious. Ragi is rich in iron, calcium, other micronutrients and roughage.
- Jowar: the third most important food crop by area and production. Rain-fed, grown in moist areas, hardly needs irrigation. Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh.
- Bajra: grows on sandy soils and shallow black soil. Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana.
- Ragi: a crop of dry regions. Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and others.
Maize. Used both as food and fodder. A kharif crop needing 21°C to 27°C and old alluvial soil; in Bihar it is also grown in the rabi season. HYV seeds, fertilisers and irrigation have raised its output. Main states: Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana.
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