Horse Gram (Kulthi)
Sow in October, harvest around February
Still sowing time: sow by the end of November.
No figures for your district: its government crop records list no area or yield for this crop. Priced from mandis across your state.
₹7,000–₹10,000
per acre a season, before costs
After typical costs: ₹1,000–₹5,000 an acre a season
- Needs care: Risky: 2 irrigations short
- Needs care: Cool in November
- Suits: Soil 9/10
Why, and how to make it work Hide details
Water
Rain falls about 2 irrigations (5 cm each) 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 20 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 20–28 °C on average, and survives 17–35 °C.
Here, in its growing months (day / night):
- Oct 30 °C / 17 °C
- Nov 28 °C / 12 °C (outside its best range)
- Dec 26 °C / 9 °C (outside its best range)
- Jan 25 °C / 9 °C (outside its best range)
Months in orange are outside its best range.
Soil
Soil for Horse Gram (Kulthi): 9 out of 10 (good).
- The pH here suits it.
- Low nitrogen matters less: it makes its own.
- Most fields here are short of boron.
Likes pH 5.5–7.0.
How the soil score worksMoney
Yield: about 2.5 quintals an acre, the typical figure across India (your district's own figure looked wrong).
On rain alone it gets about 73% of the water it needs, so the money here is worked at 73% of this yield.
Mandi price at last season's harvest (February–March 2026): about ₹4,807 a quintal across mandis in your state.
This week: about ₹4,963 a quintal, the middle of 12 mandis across India (latest 13 Nov). At that price an acre would leave about ₹3,000 a season after typical costs.
- ₹4,540 2021
- ₹4,350 2022
- ₹4,750 2023
Prices are usually best in August.
Typical costs are about ₹6,000 an acre: about half of what a usual harvest earns (2024–2026), as in farm cost surveys. They are spent whatever the harvest.
How to make it work
-
Short of boron Your soil is likely short of boron.
Mix 4 kg of borax per acre into the soil before sowing.
Few local farmers add it to this crop, so it's an easy place to get ahead.
What local farmers put on it (share of fields):
- Urea 64%
- Single Super Phosphate (SSP) 42%
- Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) 25%