Cropping Seasons and Food Crops
NCERT Class 8 • Resources and Development • Chapter "Agriculture" | NCERT Class 10 • Contemporary India II • Chapter "Agriculture"
Cropping Seasons and Food Crops
India has three cropping seasons: kharif, rabi and zaid. Kharif crops are sown with the monsoon and harvested in autumn, rabi crops are sown in winter and harvested in spring, and zaid is a short summer season between them. Food grains occupy the largest share of the cropped area.
The Three Seasons
- Kharif runs from about June to October; main crops are rice, maize, jowar, bajra, tur, cotton, jute and groundnut.
- Rabi runs from about October to March; main crops are wheat, barley, gram, peas, mustard and linseed.
- Zaid is the short season between March and June; it gives watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber, vegetables and fodder.
- Rabi depends heavily on irrigation and on winter western disturbances in the north-west.
- Kharif depends almost entirely on the timing and strength of the monsoon.
| Season | Sowing to Harvest | Main Crops |
|---|---|---|
| Kharif | June to October | Rice, maize, bajra, cotton |
| Rabi | October to March | Wheat, gram, mustard |
| Zaid | March to June | Melons, vegetables, fodder |
Major Food Crops
- Rice is the staple of the east and south; it needs high temperature, high humidity and above 100 cm rainfall, or irrigation where rain is less.
- Rice is grown widely in West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Punjab.
- Wheat is the staple of the north and north-west; it needs a cool growing season and bright sunshine at ripening.
- Wheat belts are the Ganga Satluj plain and the black soil region of the Deccan.
- Millets — jowar, bajra and ragi — are coarse grains, highly nutritious and grown on poorer, drier soils.
- Maize is both a food and fodder crop and needs old alluvial soil; Bihar is an important maize state.
- Pulses such as tur, urad, moong, masur, peas and gram are the main protein source for vegetarians and, being leguminous, fix nitrogen in the soil.
- Pulses need less water than cereals and are mostly grown on rain fed land.
- India is the world's largest producer as well as the largest consumer of pulses.
- Jowar is a rain fed kharif crop, bajra grows on sandy and shallow black soil, and ragi grows on red, shallow and dry soils of higher ground.
Leguminous crop — a crop whose root nodules fix atmospheric nitrogen and so restore soil fertility.
Exam me kaise aata hai
- Wheat belongs to which season — rabi
- Rice belongs to which season — kharif
- Which crops fix nitrogen in the soil — pulses
- Ragi, jowar and bajra are together called — millets or coarse grains
UPSC/State PSC ke liye
- Pulses are usually grown in rotation with cereals precisely because they restore the nitrogen that cereals remove.
- Millets need less water and less fertiliser, so they are being promoted again as climate resilient nutri cereals.
Yahan confuse hote hain
✗ Wheat is a kharif crop | Wheat is a rabi crop | ✓
✗ Zaid is the main cropping season | Zaid is the short summer season between kharif and rabi | ✓
✗ Millets need heavy rainfall | Millets grow on dry, less fertile land | ✓
Ek nazar me
- Three seasons: kharif, rabi and zaid.
- Kharif depends on the monsoon; rabi on irrigation and western disturbances.
- Rice needs above 100 cm rain; wheat needs a cool season.
- Pulses fix nitrogen and are grown in rotation with cereals.