Cowpea (Lobia)

Water

Rain falls about 2 irrigations (5 cm each) short in a normal year, so it's risky without water.

Needs about 290 mm of water here in its growing months. Rain in its months gives about 40 mm it can use in a normal year (0 mm in a dry one), and the soil holds about 160 mm from the monsoon at sowing.

Temperature

Grows best at 25–35 °C on average, and survives 15–40 °C.

Here, in its growing months (day / night):

• Oct 32 °C / 22 °C
• Nov 31 °C / 18 °C (outside its best range)
• Dec 30 °C / 15 °C (outside its best range)
• Jan 30 °C / 16 °C (outside its best range)

Months in orange are outside its best range.

Soil

Soil for Cowpea (Lobia): 9 out of 10 (good).

Not in the score: zinc, iron, copper and 2 more.

• The pH here suits it.
• Low nitrogen matters less: it makes its own.
• Most fields here are short of organic carbon.

Likes pH 5.5–7.5.

Money

Yield: about 3.5 quintals an acre, the typical figure in your state (your district's own figure looked wrong).

Rain gives it too little of the water it needs, so there's no income figure on rain alone: grow it only with irrigation.

Mandi price at last season's harvest (January–February 2026): about ₹6,523 a quintal across mandis in your state.

This week: about ₹8,965 a quintal, the middle of 22 mandis across India (latest 13 Nov).

Prices are usually best in January.

Typical costs are about ₹10,000 an acre: about half of what a usual harvest earns (2024–2026), as in farm cost surveys. They are spent whatever the harvest.