Gram (Chana)
Sow in October, harvest around February
Still sowing time: sow by the end of November.
Grown on 4.2 acres here. Priced from mandis across your state.
₹17,000–₹26,000
per acre a season, before costs
At typical costs, from a loss of ₹2,000 to a profit of ₹7,000 an acre a season
- Needs care: Risky: 1 irrigation short
- Suits: Ideal temperatures
- Suits: Soil 9/10
Why, and how to make it work Hide details
Water
Rain falls about 1 irrigation (5 cm) short in a normal year, so it's risky without water.
Needs about 300 mm of water here in its growing months. Rain in its months gives about 100 mm it can use in a normal year (60 mm in a dry one), and the soil holds about 170 mm from the monsoon at sowing.
Temperature
Grows best at 15–29 °C on average, and survives 7–35 °C.
Here, in its growing months (day / night):
- Oct 27 °C / 19 °C
- Nov 27 °C / 19 °C
- Dec 27 °C / 17 °C
- Jan 27 °C / 17 °C
Soil
Soil for Gram (Chana): 9 out of 10 (good).
Not in the score: nitrogen and sulphur.
- The pH here suits it.
- Many fields here are short of phosphorus, which it needs a lot.
Likes pH 6.0–8.5.
How the soil score worksMoney
Yield: about 3.0 quintals an acre, the typical figure in your state (your district's own figure looked wrong).
On rain alone it gets about 87% of the water it needs, so the money here is worked at 87% of this yield.
Mandi price at last season's harvest (February–March 2026): about ₹8,300 a quintal across mandis in your state.
This week: about ₹7,000 a quintal, the middle of 283 mandis across India (latest 13 Nov). At that price an acre would lose about ₹629 a season at typical costs.
Minimum support price: ₹5,958 a quintal (2027-28), if you sell to government procurement.
- ₹6,840 2021
- ₹6,650 2022
- ₹6,500 2023
- ₹8,100 2024
- ₹8,330 2025
Prices are usually best in December.
Typical costs are about ₹19,000 an acre (seed, fertiliser, labour and hired machines, from the government's cost survey). They are spent whatever the harvest.