Chana (chickpea) in Vidarbha: what to check, and when, from sowing to harvest

When should chana be sown?

ICAR's rabi advisory for Maharashtra: rainfed chana in the first fortnight of October, irrigated chana from the last week of October to the first week of November. Avoid December and January sowing, which meets low moisture and heat at pod filling (Directorate of Pulses Development).

ICAR recommends the broad bed furrow layout. A shallow-sown crop is prone to wilt, so a sowing depth of 8 to 10 cm is advised (Directorate of Pulses Development). Varieties ICAR names: desi Akash, Phule Vikram, Phule Vikrant, JAKI-9218; kabuli PKV Kabuli-2, Virat, BDNGK-798. Dr. PDKV's Super Jaki (AKG-1402) matures in 98 days and is resistant to moderately resistant to wilt.

Wilt: in the first month and again at flowering

Early wilt shows about 20 to 30 days after sowing, and late wilt from flowering to podding. Signs: drooping leaf stalks, yellowing leaves, and brown-black streaks inside the stem or root when split lengthwise, even though the root looks healthy outside (IJEP, 2024).

Losses can be large: 77 to 90 per cent of yield in early wilt and 24 to 65 per cent in late wilt (IJEP, 2024). The Directorate of Pulses Development suggests rotation with cereals and removing the previous crop's debris.

Pod borer: from flowering

ICAR-CRIDA agromet bulletins for Vidarbha (3 December 2021 and 23 December 2022) named partly cloudy weather with falling night temperatures, or intermittent cloud, as favourable to pod borer. Treat it as something that raises the risk, not a certain cause.

For monitoring, ICAR suggests 5 pheromone traps per hectare; ICAR-IIPR puts the economic threshold at 5 to 6 male moths per trap per night in the post-winter months. Ask your KVK before any spray.

Weather: frost and water

Frost at flowering makes flowers fail to set seed (Directorate of Pulses Development). Where water is available, ICAR names flowering and pod filling as the two stages for a protective irrigation.

When to harvest chana

Leaves start to fall, stems and pods turn brown or straw coloured, and seeds go hard and rattle at about 15 per cent moisture. Left too long, pods drop and shatter below 10 per cent moisture (Directorate of Pulses Development).

What can the satellite tell you about chana?

The rabi season has few rainy days, so the satellite sees fields more often. In an ICRISAT study in three small-plot districts, 15-day Sentinel-2 greenness told wheat, chickpea and mustard apart with 84 per cent overall accuracy; most errors were in fragmented chickpea fields.

The satellite cannot tell wilt from water stress. It shows a strip with less greenness and when it changed; the cause has to be checked in the field.