Potato
Sow in October, harvest around January
Still sowing time: sow by the end of November.
Grown on 8,608 acres here. Sold at 5 mandis in your district.
₹68,000–₹1.0 lakh
per acre a season, before costs
After typical costs: ₹12,000–₹46,000 an acre a season
- Needs care: Risky: 2 irrigations short
- Suits: Ideal temperatures
- Suits: Soil 8/10
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 310 mm of water here in its growing months. Rain in its months gives about 60 mm it can use in a normal year (20 mm in a dry one), and the soil holds about 200 mm from the monsoon at sowing.
Temperature
Grows best at 15–25 °C on average, and survives 7–30 °C.
Here, in its growing months (day / night):
- Oct 32 °C / 24 °C (outside its best range)
- Nov 30 °C / 19 °C
- Dec 26 °C / 15 °C
- Jan 25 °C / 13 °C
Months in orange are outside its best range.
Soil
Soil for Potato: 8 out of 10 (good).
- The pH here suits it.
- Salt in the soil here can harm it.
- Many fields here are short of nitrogen, which it needs a lot.
Likes pH 5.0–6.2.
How the soil score worksMoney
Yield: about 104 quintals an acre here in this season (district figures).
On rain alone it gets about 82% of the water it needs, so the money here is worked at 82% of this yield.
Mandi price at last season's harvest (January–February 2026): about ₹990 a quintal at mandis in your district.
This week: about ₹720 a quintal, the middle of 62 mandis in your state (latest 13 Nov). At that price an acre would leave about ₹6,000 a season after typical costs.
- ₹1,110 2021
- ₹2,170 2022
- ₹1,610 2023
- ₹2,550 2024
- ₹1,480 2025
Prices swing a lot from year to year, so income can be well above or below this range.
Prices are usually best in December.
Typical costs are about ₹56,000 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
The better districts with similar soil, rain and warmth get 111 quintals an acre. That's a realistic target.
What local farmers put on it (share of fields):
- Urea 87%
- NPK Mixture 42%
- Nitro Phosphate Potash 12%
- Single Super Phosphate (SSP) 9%