Rabi & Horticulture Crop Guides
Explore Rabi and horticulture crop guides with practical tips on cultivation, nutrition, pest control, disease management, and better crop growth.
23 articles
6 minMango Flower Pests and Diseases: Control Guide
Protect mango flowers from panicle emergence to just before full bloom. Control hoppers, mealy bug, powdery mildew and anthracnose with timed sprays, but stop at full bloom so bees can pollinate.
11 minOnion Farming in India: Complete Guide to Planting, Fertilizer and Harvesting
Onion in India is grown in three seasons: kharif, late kharif and rabi. Rabi is the main season and gives the best storable bulbs. Raise seedlings on raised nursery beds (5-7 kg seed per hectare, roughly 2-3 kg per acre), transplant 35-50 day old seedlings at 15 x 10 cm, apply about 110:40:60 kg NPK per hectare plus sulphur for rabi, keep thrips and purple blotch under control, stop irrigation 10-15 days before harvest, and cure bulbs properly before storage.
12 minMarigold Flower Farming: Complete Guide to Cultivation, Season and Yield
Marigold grows best in well-drained loamy soil with pH around 7.0-7.5 and mild weather. Raise seedlings in a nursery, transplant them at about one month old, pinch the main shoot around 30-40 days after transplanting, and start picking flowers about 60 days after planting. Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) reports an average yield of about 18 tonnes of flowers per hectare (roughly 7 tonnes per acre), though actual yield varies with variety, season and management.
10 minRainy Season Vegetables: Best Leafy Vegetables to Grow in India
Amaranth (chaulai) is the safest leafy crop for the rainy season, because it is a warm-season crop that can be sown through the year. Coriander and methi can be sown in June-July in suitable regions such as Tamil Nadu (per TNAU), but only on well-drained raised beds. Palak (spinach beet) and lettuce are cool-season leaning and are better sown toward the end of the monsoon (August-September onwards), unless you choose a heat- and humidity-tolerant variety. Whatever you grow, drainage and seed treatment matter more than any spray.
5 minRabi Onion Nursery to Transplant: A Complete Week-by-Week Schedule
Sow a rabi onion nursery from October to mid-November on raised beds 15 cm high and 1.2 m wide. About 5 to 7 kg of treated seed on 0.05 hectare of nursery raises seedlings for one hectare. Transplant 50 to 55 day old seedlings from December to the first week of January at 15 x 10 cm spacing.
5 minChana Pod Borer and Mustard Aphid: Early Warning Signs, ETL Values and IPM Control
For chana pod borer control, install 5 pheromone traps and 20 bird perches per hectare at flowering, and act when you find one mature larva per metre row or 2 young larvae per 10 plants. For mustard aphid, spray only when 10% of plants carry 26 to 28 aphids on the top 10 cm of shoot.
5 minFrost and Cold Wave: How to Protect Field Crops and Garden Plants
Frost protection in crops means keeping plant tissue above freezing on cold, clear, still nights. The simplest steps are a light irrigation in the evening when frost is forecast, covering nurseries and young plants overnight, and, for mustard, gram and rajma, a spray of 0.1% sulphuric acid or 500 ppm thiourea as advised in agromet bulletins.
5 minPotato Late Blight Control: A Prevention Calendar to Follow Before the Disease Hits
Potato late blight control depends on spraying before symptoms appear. Start a protective mancozeb or chlorothalonil spray (0.2 to 0.25%) when forecasts show 10 to 20 C with high humidity or fog for more than 18 hours. At the first lesion, switch to a systemic such as cymoxanil + mancozeb or dimethomorph, repeating every 7 to 10 days.
8 minChana Sowing: Seed Treatment to Prevent Wilt
Treat chana seed in this order: a fungicide or Trichoderma first, an insecticide if termites are a problem, and Rhizobium plus PSB last, just before sowing. Typical doses are carbendazim-based fungicide at 2 to 2.5 g per kg, Trichoderma at 4 to 10 g per kg, and Rhizobium and PSB at about 200 g per 10 kg seed.
6 minMustard Sowing and Fertilizer Schedule for High Oil Yield
For irrigated mustard, ICAR recommends 80 kg N, 40 kg P2O5, 40 kg K2O and 40 kg sulphur per hectare. Apply half the nitrogen and all P, K and S at sowing, and the rest of the nitrogen at the first irrigation, 30 to 45 days after sowing. Add zinc and boron where soils are deficient.
7 minWheat Sowing Planner: Sowing Time, Seed Rate, Varieties and Basal Dose by Zone
Sow timely wheat from 1 to 15 November in the north-western plains and 10 to 20 November in central and eastern India, at 100 kg seed per hectare (40 kg per acre). For late sowing after 25 November, raise seed to 125 kg per hectare and choose a late-sown variety recommended for your zone.
