Mustard Farming in India: Cost per Acre, Sowing to Harvest, Diseases, Pests, Yield and Profit (Sarson Ki Kheti)

Mustard (sarson, rai) is India's main winter oilseed. Sow irrigated crops from about 10 to 25 October, use 1.6 to 2 kg seed per acre in rows 45 cm apart, give three irrigations, and watch for white rust, Alternaria blight and aphids from December. The national average yield is about 1,461 kg per hectare (about 5.9 quintals per acre) while good management and ICAR demonstrations reach 17 to 20 quintals per hectare (about 7 to 8 quintals per acre). The rabi MSP for 2027-28 is Rs 6,613 per quintal. A 2020 study put the cost at roughly Rs 18,000 per acre, so at MSP and 7 quintals per acre the crop leaves about Rs 29,000 per acre. Recent mandi rates have been higher than MSP, so check your local rate before you plan.

India is the second largest rapeseed-mustard area in the world and the fourth largest producer. Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal together give 87.9 percent of the country's production. Mustard oil is about 45 percent of the edible oil India makes from its own oilseeds, so this is a crop the whole country leans on.

The ICAR-IIRR and DA&FW authors writing in the Journal of Oilseed Brassica (January 2026) give a five-year average (2020-21 to 2024-25) of 82.71 lakh hectares and 121.36 lakh tonnes, spread over 26 states. India needs about 200 lakh tonnes a year and grows 100 to 130 lakh tonnes. That gap is why the government has set a 2030-31 target of 207 lakh tonnes under the National Mission on Edible Oils (Oilseeds), and why mustard prices stay interesting to farmers.

Read the yield rows first. The average Indian field gives about 6 quintals an acre, the same crop in a demonstration plot gives 7 to 8, and a farmer in the UK gets double the Indian average. Almost all the extra money in this guide comes from closing that gap on your own field, not from waiting for a better price.

The Union Cabinet approved the 2027-28 rabi MSP on 30 September 2026. For rapeseed and mustard it is Rs 6,613 per quintal, Rs 413 more than the Rs 6,200 of 2026-27. That is Rs 66.13 a kg, or Rs 6,613 for 100 kg of seed. Mandi rates have lately been well above it.

The Agrospectrum table of the Cabinet decision puts the official cost of production at Rs 3,367 a quintal, which leaves a 96 percent margin. The footnote says that cost counts hired labour, machine or bullock work, leased-land rent, seed, fertiliser, manure, irrigation, wear on implements and interest, and it also puts a value on family labour. AIR News reports the same Rs 413 rise and the 30 September date. Mustard you sow this month is sold in the 2027-28 marketing season, so this is the MSP that applies to your crop.

Live Price Check Needed: A CMV360 report dated 16 October 2026 listed mustard at Rs 9,125 to Rs 9,150 a quintal at Jaipur mandi and about Rs 10,001 at Saloni plant centres in Alwar, Shamsabad and Digner on 15 October. It put the rise down to festival demand, thin arrivals and global edible oil prices. That is one day's quote, not the price you will get in March or April. Look at your own mandi on the day you sell. Our profit table shows both the MSP and Rs 9,125 so you can see the range, but only the MSP is a floor. The CMV360 report does not mention MSP at all.

How to think about selling. MSP is the price below which the government says the market should not push your crop. Mandi price is what a buyer pays on the day. When the mandi is far above MSP, as it is now, the MSP matters less for the sale and more as a safety net while you plan. Work out your own break-even price first (a formula comes in the profit section), then compare each day's mandi quote with it. If you need cash at harvest, selling part of the crop when the quote is comfortably above your break-even is a sensible rule. For the crop-wise table and what MSP does and does not promise, read our rabi MSP guide.

The best study figure we found is about Rs 45,000 a hectare, roughly Rs 18,000 an acre, from two studies of around 2020 in Uttar Pradesh and Assam. The official cost for 2027-28 is Rs 3,367 a quintal. In one Meerut district study labour and land rent together took about 64 percent of the total, so your own bill depends mostly on wages and whether you pay rent.

We have to be straight with you here. We could not open an official CACP table that splits mustard cost into rupee line items, because those tables sit behind a login. So you get three sourced things instead: study totals, the share the two biggest items take, and the quantity of every input per acre from ICAR. Put today's local rate against each line and you have your own cost sheet in ten minutes.

These study totals are old. Wages, diesel and fertiliser have all gone up since 2020, and we have no sourced inflation figure, so treat Rs 18,300 as a floor. If you are in Haryana, Rajasthan or western UP with hired labour and rented land, expect your bill to sit above it.

Below is the cost sheet by line. The middle column is what ICAR says one acre needs. The last column is yours to fill. Two lines deserve a second look before you buy anything: sulphur, which most farmers under-use, and the fungicide sprays, which you only need where white rust or blight is common.

Cost per bigha: a bigha is a different size in every state, so we do not give one per-bigha rupee figure. Ask the patwari or check your land record for the bigha-to-acre ratio in your district, then multiply your per-acre cost by it. Yield per bigha works the same way.

Profit per acre is the quintals you harvest times the price you get, minus what you spent. At the national average yield and MSP, the crop leaves about Rs 21,000 an acre on a cost of Rs 18,300. At 7 quintals an acre it leaves about Rs 29,000, which sits close to an ICAR-supported Rajasthan demonstration (net return about Rs 27,850 an acre).

The formula, in plain words. Net profit per acre = (quintals per acre x price per quintal) minus total cost per acre. Break-even price = total cost per acre divided by quintals per acre. If your break-even is far below the MSP, you are safe. If it is close, your cost or your yield needs work.

How to read this table. Every gross and net number is our arithmetic: yield per acre times price, then minus a flat Rs 18,330. That cost comes from a 2020 study and is probably low, so subtract more if your bill is higher. The Rs 9,125 column uses one mid-October Jaipur quote and may not hold at harvest. The Rajasthan demonstration reported Rs 68,816.81 net per hectare (about Rs 27,850 an acre) on 17.61 quintals per hectare, per the same ICAR-IIRR paper, though the paper does not give the year.

What moves your profit most, in order: sowing on time, enough sulphur, a disease spray at the right stage, and a weekly aphid check from December. A farmer who skips these often ends near 5 to 6 quintals even with good seed. ICAR whole-package demonstrations raised yield by 81 to 137 percent under rainfed conditions and 87 to 105 percent under irrigation over the farmer's own practice, as the same journal paper notes.

Pick by region and by your sowing date. For irrigated north-west India, the IARI releases Pusa Mustard 25 and 28 (about 107 days) and CCSHAU's RH 749 are common choices. In the Bharatpur belt of Rajasthan, ICAR-DRMR lists Giriraj (DRMRIJ-31) and the NRCHB-101 hybrid. In the Bundelkhand organic trials, Varuna, Pusa Bold and Giriraj did best.

A few plain tips on choosing. If you are late, take a short-duration variety. Pusa Mustard 25 and 28 mature in about 107 days, while RH 749 needs about 150, so a crop sown in the first week of November will not finish the way RH 749 does when sown on 10 October. If you are in a heavy aphid area, sow early and ask your KVK about tolerant lines, because TNAU names JM-1 and RK-9501 as tolerant. If you want to try a hybrid such as NRCHB 101 or 506, ask for certified seed with a tag and do not save seed from it for next year. We could not find an official state-wise recommendation list in a form we could open, so your district KVK is the right last check.

ICAR-DRMR says 142 varieties were released from 1967 to 2013. The journal paper above notes that varieties under five years old are under-used even though breeder seed is available. So when you ask the seed dealer, ask what is new as well as what is popular.

Sow irrigated mustard from about 10 to 25 October, ideally by 20 October. In Bundelkhand and other drier central areas the window runs from mid-October to the first week of November. Early sowing gives you a cool-weather start and lowers aphid damage, and every week of delay after early November costs yield.

Here is the trade-off in the field. Sow too late and the crop flowers in warming weather, sets less seed and carries less oil. TNAU advises sowing before 20 October to escape aphid, which matches the window in our sowing and fertiliser post. Under organic management at Jhansi, sowing on 4 November beat sowing on 18 November for Pusa Bold (34.58 against 31.99 q per ha) and several other varieties, while Varuna and KMH-721 held up better when sown late (Indian Farming, July 2023).

We are writing this on 28 October. If you have not sown yet, finish this week and choose a short-duration variety. Do not wait for a perfect field. A good bed sown on 5 November beats a perfect bed sown on 25 November.

Make a fine, level seedbed in medium loam with near-neutral pH and good drainage. Sow 1.6 to 2 kg of seed an acre in lines 45 cm apart, with 15 to 20 cm between plants, 3 to 4 cm deep in moist soil. Treat the seed first. Mustard does not forgive standing water.

Why the table matters. Mustard seed is tiny, so a few kilos spread by hand look like plenty and come up as a thick mat. Crowded plants stay thin and shade each other, and the thick canopy holds damp air that white rust and Alternaria like. Rows at 45 cm and thinning at 15 cm tall feel like extra work, but they are the cheapest yield you will buy. Deep seed fails to come up, so keep to 3 to 4 cm and sow into moisture.

Seed treatment is the cheapest insurance in the whole crop. The ICAR and CCSHAU work gives these options, so choose by the problem you have had before. Where white rust or downy mildew has hit your area, metalaxyl on the seed is the one with trial results behind it: Katyayani's Metaxel (metalaxyl 35 percent WS) seed treatment has the same active and strength (35 percent metalaxyl) as the Apron 35 SD used in the CCSHAU trials, though it is a WS formulation and not the SD they used. Its page lists mustard among its crops but gives no dose, so read the pack. If you prefer a biological route, ICAR-DRMR uses Trichoderma harzianum at 10 g a kg of seed, and a Trichoderma harzianum powder is the product to look at. Its page names no crop, so check the pack for the seed dose.

The ICAR-DRMR technologies page has the full list. Any chemical you use must carry mustard on its label, so ask the dealer to show you that line before you pay.

ICAR-DRMR recommends about 80 kg N, 40 kg P2O5, 40 kg sulphur, 5 kg zinc and 1 kg boron per hectare, along with 2.5 tonnes of FYM or vermicompost. Sulphur is the big one: 40 kg a hectare raised yield by up to 25 percent and oil by up to 2 percent in DRMR work. Our fertiliser post has the full bag plan, so we only summarise it here.

In plain words: mustard is an oil crop, and oil needs sulphur the way a diesel engine needs diesel. A field that gets urea and DAP but no sulphur gives green plants and thin seed. If your soil is short, you will see pale, stunted plants and poor pod filling, and you cannot fix it at flowering. ICAR-DRMR found the whole package (FYM, N, P, S, Zn, B) beat the common 80:40:0 plan by more than 10 percent.

Where you buy the sulphur is up to you: SSP, gypsum and bentonite sulphur all work, and our fertiliser post compares them. One option that gives nitrogen and sulphur together is ammonium sulphate (21 percent N, 24 percent S). Its page names mustard under oilseeds, but it gives no oilseed-specific rate and the only per-acre range it states is 25 to 75 kg for cotton and other crops, so read the pack and ask your agronomist before you pick an amount. If a soil test shows low zinc, a zinc sulphate (33 percent) product is the usual fix. The page lists no crops or dose, so use the zinc figure from the table above and your soil test, not a guess. A soil health card tells you which of zinc, boron and sulphur your soil actually lacks, and it costs nothing.

Do not mix up the two zinc numbers you will see. ICAR-DRMR writes 5 kg of zinc metal per hectare, while our spoke post writes the same need as kilos of zinc sulphate product. They do not conflict. Use whichever one matches the bag you buy.

Plan three irrigations: before sowing, at the rosette stage (about 30 days) and at pod formation (55 to 60 days). If you have water for only one, give it at 50 percent flowering or early pod formation. Control weeds with two hand weedings at 25 and 50 days. Never let water stand in the field.

Stage by stage, what it looks like. At 30 days the plants are a low rosette of leaves. This irrigation pushes branching, so skip it and you get a thin, single-stem crop. At 55 to 60 days the pods are forming. Water stress here is the most expensive mistake, because it shows up as pods that do not fill, and by the time you see it you cannot undo it. The opposite mistake is over-irrigating at flowering in a cold spell. Wet soil plus cold nights is the recipe for stem rot, which is why ICAR-DRMR says to hold irrigation between 25 December and 15 January where stem rot is a problem.

ICAR-DRMR also reports that sprinkler or drip gave 25 to 30 percent more yield than check-basin irrigation while using 50 percent less water, and that furrow-irrigated raised beds save 33 percent of water with up to 10 percent more yield. The drip kit in the products section below is built for that setup.

For weeds, the Bundelkhand package names bathua (Chenopodium album), khartua (Chenopodium murale) and gehun ka mama (Phalaris minor) as the common annual weeds, and motha (Cyperus rotundus) and doob (Cynodon dactylon) as the stubborn ones. Mustard shades weeds out once it is tall enough, so the first 50 days are the ones that count. We did not find a Katyayani herbicide whose page lists pendimethalin or clodinafop, so we do not link one; use the active named by ICAR-DRMR and read the mustard line on the label. Mulching with 10 tonnes of straw per hectare also keeps weeds down and holds moisture, see our guide on mulching types and depth.

The big three are white rust, Alternaria blight and downy mildew, with Sclerotinia stem rot in cold, damp years. Indian studies put yield loss at 23 to 54.5 percent for white rust and 17 to 48 percent for Alternaria blight. Seed treatment, timely sowing and two sprays at 45 and 60 days are the core defence where the disease is common.

The symptoms and weather for Alternaria, white rust, downy mildew and stem rot come from the TNAU white rust page, the CCSHAU trial and a university agriculture blog, so confirm any unfamiliar symptom with your KVK. Here is how it looks on the farm. Walk into the field at 40 to 45 days and turn over a few lower leaves. Round grey-black spots mean Alternaria is starting. Chalk-white blisters on the underside mean white rust. If, a few weeks later, some flower spikes look thick, green and twisted and never make pods, that is staghead, and those plants are gone.

What the CCSHAU trials found is worth knowing before you spend. Treating seed with Trichoderma harzianum at 10 g a kg and then spraying Ridomil MZ 72 WP at 2 g a litre at 50 to 60 days cut Alternaria leaf blight by up to 43.6 percent and white rust by up to 39.5 percent, with yield up to 26.4 percent higher. Metalaxyl seed treatment (Apron 35 SD at 6 g a kg) plus the same spray did better, with yield up to 37.3 percent higher (CCSHAU paper). Those trials used the variety Varuna, which is very susceptible, so your gains may be smaller.

For the spray itself, the ICAR-DRMR schedule uses mancozeb at 45 days and metalaxyl plus mancozeb at 60 days. Katyayani's Meta-Manco (metalaxyl 8 percent + mancozeb 64 percent WP) has the same two actives in the same strengths as the Ridomil MZ 72 WP used in the CCSHAU trials. Its page lists mustard among its crops and names downy mildew, but it names neither white rust nor Alternaria, and it gives no dose, so use the label and not this article for the amount. For other fungicides (plain mancozeb, carbendazim or propiconazole), the fungicides collection shows what is in stock. It is a general collection and does not mention mustard, so check that mustard is on the pack of whatever you pick.

If you see white rust only on a few plants late in the crop, you do not need to spray the whole field out of habit. If you have had it in earlier seasons, the 45-day and 60-day sprays are the ones that pay. We could not check every fungicide against its CIB&RC mustard label line in this review, so the label is your last word. Our fungicide application guide covers nozzle, water volume and timing.

Aphid is the main pest from mid-December to March. Painted bug and sawfly hit seedlings, and leaf miner and diamondback moth attack leaves. Sow before 20 October, scout weekly from December, and use neem, ladybirds and fungal agents first. Spray an insecticide only when aphid numbers cross the threshold. The aphid post has the threshold and the full plan.

On the farm, aphid looks like this. You part the flowering shoot at the top of the plant and see a grey-green crust of tiny insects packed along the stem and buds, with sticky shine and sometimes black film on the leaves below. At that point flowers drop and pods stay thin. That is why weekly scouting from early December matters more than any one spray. If you see only a few colonies on a few plants, neem or a fungal agent is usually enough. The fungal route that ICAR-DRMR used is Verticillium lecanii. Katyayani's Veer Chakra (Verticillium lecanii liquid) names aphids on its page, though it lists no crops and no dose, so check the pack for mustard and follow it. Fungal agents work best in humid weather, as DRMR noted, and slower than a chemical knockdown.

Painted bug and sawfly are seedling pests, so they are the reason early irrigation and seed treatment matter. A seedling that wilts in the first month with small black-and-orange bugs on the stem is painted bug, not drought. A seedling with ragged edges and shot holes and dark larvae on the underside is sawfly, and in the morning you can pick them off by hand, which is exactly what TNAU advises.

The CIB&RC list of registered insecticides (to September 2025) has mustard rows for aphid, sawfly, painted bug and leaf miner under several products. In the copy we read the table layout was too scrambled to match each row to its active ingredient safely, so we give no insecticide dose here. Check the mustard line on the pack and follow its dose, water volume and waiting period. TNAU's chemical list (see the TNAU pest page) is an old one, so check that any product you pick is still registered.

Use the DAS numbers as a guide. Your variety and region can shift them by a week or two, and a cold, foggy spell can push every disease date earlier. Keep a small notebook with the sowing date and write each job beside it. Next season you will know exactly which spray paid.

Harvest when about 75 percent of the pods have turned brown. Do not wait for every pod to dry, because ripe pods shatter and the seed ends up on the ground. Expect 5.9 quintals an acre at the national average, 7 to 8 with good management, and 10 to 12 on research-farm organic plots. Oil content runs 33 to 46 percent depending on species and variety.

What this looks like in the field. Walk the crop every other day once the pods start to yellow. Squeeze a few pods from the middle of the main shoot: seed should be firm and dark, and pods on the lower branches should be brown. If you cut at the right time, the plants dry on the threshing floor and the pods stay intact. Cut late, and every touch scatters seed. Dry the seed well before you store it, and keep the bags off damp ground.

Yield levers that you control, in the order they matter: sow on time, give sulphur, thin to spacing, irrigate at the rosette and pod stages, spray where disease is known, watch for aphid. Per bigha yield: multiply quintals per acre by the bigha-to-acre ratio in your district. If a bigha is 0.5 acre where you live, per-bigha yield is half the per-acre figure. Check your ratio first.

What is mustard used for? Indian mustard (rai) is grown mainly for oil. Black mustard is a spice, and white mustard is used as fodder or green manure. The Bundelkhand paper quotes about 5 to 13 percent linoleic acid and about 27 percent oleic acid in mustard oil. The cake left after pressing is a protein feed, and young leaves are eaten as sarson ka saag.

Yes. The ICAR Indian Farming package for organic mustard uses FYM and vermicompost, Trichoderma on the seed, PSB and Azotobacter, neem and fungal agents for aphid, and garlic or cow urine sprays for disease. Research-farm yields were 25 to 30 q per ha. We found no sourced organic price premium, so do not plan around one.

The Jhansi work found that 20 kg of sulphur per hectare through rock phosphate plus PSB and Azotobacter gave 20.09 q per ha, against 10.23 for the common fertiliser plan in that trial. The package suggests 6 tonnes of FYM and 3 tonnes of vermicompost per hectare and one hand weeding at 40 to 45 days (see the Indian Farming article). These are research-farm results from one region, so test them on a small plot before you put your whole acreage under them.

Katyayani sells three Mustard Unnati kits. We opened each product page on 28 October 2026. None states how many acres a pack covers, so ask the seller that before you order.

Bio products work best as prevention, with good soil moisture, and they will not stop white rust that is already spreading. For how to choose between bio and chemical tools, read our bio vs chemical comparison.

Cold waves in December and January hit mustard at flowering and pod stage, and cold, foggy, damp weather is also what stem rot, Alternaria and white rust like. Sow on time, drain the field and keep the disease schedule. If losses are large, enrol under PMFBY before the cut-off and report damage within 72 hours as a precaution, since frost is not named in the localised-risk list.

Our frost protection guide covers what to do on the farm. The PMFBY rabi enrolment post gives premium and deadline, and the frost claim guide explains the 72-hour rule and the helpline note. Confirm the current helpline and cut-off on the official PMFBY portal.

Below is a quick problem finder. Match what you see to the likely cause and do the first thing listed. Then go to the matching section above for the full plan.

One more habit that saves money: rotate. Stem rot, white rust and downy mildew live in crop residue and soil, so a non-host crop for two to three years where the disease keeps coming back breaks the cycle. Our crop rotation guide has examples.

Conclusion

Mustard pays when you sow by about 20 October, put on enough sulphur, spray at 45 and 60 days where white rust or blight is common, and check for aphids every week from December. At the 2027-28 MSP of Rs 6,613 and a 7 quintal crop, the ICAR-based numbers leave roughly Rs 29,000 per acre on a cost of about Rs 18,300. Use your own cost bill and your local mandi price in the formula before you decide your acreage.