Lentil (Masoor)
Sow in October, harvest around April
Still sowing time: sow by the end of November.
Grown on 63 acres here. Priced from mandis across India.
₹13,000–₹19,000
per acre a season, before costs
At typical costs, from a loss of ₹3,000 to a profit of ₹3,000 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 360 mm of water here in its growing months. Rain in its months gives about 80 mm it can use in a normal year (40 mm in a dry one), and the soil holds about 180 mm from the monsoon at sowing.
Temperature
Grows best at 15–29 °C on average, and survives 5–32 °C.
Here, in its growing months (day / night):
- Oct 22 °C / 11 °C
- Nov 17 °C / 6 °C (outside its best range)
- Dec 14 °C / 4 °C (outside its best range)
- Jan 12 °C / 2 °C (outside its best range)
- Feb 15 °C / 4 °C (outside its best range)
- Mar 19 °C / 8 °C (outside its best range)
- Apr 25 °C / 11 °C
Months in orange are outside its best range.
Soil
Soil for Lentil (Masoor): 9 out of 10 (good).
- The pH here suits it.
- Low nitrogen matters less: it makes its own.
- Many fields here are short of sulphur, which it needs a lot.
Likes pH 5.5–7.5.
How the soil score worksMoney
Yield: about 3.4 quintals an acre, the typical figure in your state (your district's own figure looked wrong).
On rain alone it gets about 74% of the water it needs, so the money here is worked at 74% of this yield.
Mandi price at last season's harvest (April–May 2026): about ₹6,450 a quintal across India's mandis.
This week: about ₹6,950 a quintal, the middle of 10 mandis across India (latest 13 Nov). At that price an acre would leave about ₹1,000 a season after typical costs.
Minimum support price: ₹7,390 a quintal (2027-28), if you sell to government procurement.
- ₹6,000 2021
- ₹6,220 2022
- ₹5,860 2023
- ₹6,660 2024
- ₹6,740 2025
Prices are usually best in November.
Typical costs are about ₹16,000 an acre (seed, fertiliser, labour and hired machines, from the government's cost survey). They are spent whatever the harvest.