Chillies (Dry)
Sow in October, harvest around March
Still sowing time: sow by the end of November.
Grown on 3,855 acres here. Priced from mandis across your state.
₹1.0 lakh–₹1.5 lakh
per acre a season, before costs
At typical costs, from a loss of ₹13,000 to a profit of ₹37,000 an acre a season
- Needs care: Risky: 7 irrigations short
- Suits: Ideal temperatures
- Suits: Soil 8/10
Why, and how to make it work Hide details
Water
Rain falls about 7 irrigations (5 cm each) short in a normal year, so it's risky without water.
Needs about 570 mm of water here in its growing months. Rain in its months gives about 30 mm it can use in a normal year (10 mm in a dry one), and the soil holds about 200 mm from the monsoon at sowing.
Temperature
Grows best at 17–30 °C on average, and survives 8–35 °C.
Here, in its growing months (day / night):
- Oct 29 °C / 21 °C
- Nov 28 °C / 16 °C
- Dec 26 °C / 13 °C
- Jan 27 °C / 13 °C
- Feb 30 °C / 16 °C
- Mar 33 °C / 20 °C
Soil
Soil for Chillies (Dry): 8 out of 10 (good).
- The pH here suits it.
- Many fields here are short of sulphur, which it needs a lot.
Likes pH 6.0–7.5.
How the soil score worksMoney
Yield: about 5.4 quintals an acre here in this season (district figures).
Mandi price at last season's harvest (April 2026): about ₹23,200 a quintal across mandis in your state.
This week: about ₹17,550 a quintal, the middle of 39 mandis across India (latest 13 Nov). At that price an acre would lose about ₹18,000 a season at typical costs.
- ₹12,300 2021
- ₹16,590 2022
- ₹24,800 2023
Prices swing a lot from year to year, so income can be well above or below this range.
Prices are usually best in February.
Typical costs are about ₹1.1 lakh an acre: about half of what a usual harvest earns (2024–2026), as in farm cost surveys. They are spent whatever the harvest.