Maize

Mid-June to early July for kharif, with the monsoon onset; mid-October to mid-November for rabi maize under assured irrigation; late January to February for a short spring crop where a third cycle fits before the next kharif sowing.

Roughly 8–10 kg per acre (20–25 kg/ha) for hybrid maize, slightly more for composite or OPV varieties. Buy hybrid seed fresh each season — saved hybrid seed does not breed true and yields 25–30% less the following season.

Maize roots suffocate within 24–48 hours of standing water, especially in the first three weeks after sowing — it is the least waterlogging-tolerant of India’s major cereals. Sowing on ridges or raised beds rather than a flat seedbed, with field-edge drainage channels cut ahead of sowing, is cheap insurance against losing a large share of the stand to a single heavy monsoon shower.

On rainfed kharif tracts, the monsoon usually supplies most of the water, with irrigation filling gaps at the knee-high and tasselling stages if rain is delayed. Rabi and spring maize, grown outside the monsoon, need 4–6 irrigations. The one irrigation to never skip, at any time of year, is at tasselling and silking.

A common recommendation for irrigated hybrid maize is 120:60:40 kg/ha of N:P:K, with about a quarter of the nitrogen at sowing and the rest split between the knee-high stage and just ahead of tasselling. Maize responds to nitrogen timing more sharply than wheat or rice — a delayed top dressing shows up directly as a shorter stalk and a smaller cob, not just a slightly lower yield.

Check the whorl of young plants twice a week from emergence for caterpillars with a distinctive inverted-Y mark on the head, ragged windowpane-like holes on leaves, and visible frass (droppings) in the whorl. It is the biggest new threat to Indian maize since 2018 — catching it before larvae mature and burrow deep into the whorl makes control far more effective.

₹2,410 per quintal for Kharif MSP 2026–27, as notified by the Government of India. Maize also has a rabi crop in some states, but MSP procurement is concentrated in the kharif season and marketing season that follows it.

Most likely Turcicum leaf blight — long, cigar-shaped lesions starting on lower leaves and moving upward, favoured by cool nights and heavy dew. Maydis leaf blight looks similar but with smaller, rectangular lesions bound by leaf veins. See the Diseases section above for treatment.

25–40 quintals per hectare for an irrigated hybrid under normal management; well above that under intensive drip-fertigated management with a top-tier hybrid. A rainfed crop, or one that misses the tasselling-stage irrigation, yields meaningfully less.

No — this is a common and costly mistake. Unlike wheat, paddy or a composite/OPV maize variety, seed saved from a hybrid crop does not breed true and typically yields 25–30% less the following season. Buy fresh certified hybrid seed each season instead.

When husk leaves turn straw-brown and dry and a black layer forms at the base of the kernel — physiological maturity — usually 90–120 days after sowing depending on the hybrid. Grain moisture is around 20–25% at that point, though harvest is often timed a little later for easier shelling.

Dry shelled grain to below 12–14% moisture before storage. Damp maize is one of the most aflatoxin-prone grains in storage — a real food-safety risk, not just a quality issue, if grain is bagged too wet. Hermetic (airtight) bags are worth the extra cost for storage beyond a few months.

PM-KISAN is not crop-specific — any landholding farmer family meeting the scheme’s land-record and eligibility criteria qualifies, maize or otherwise. See the Related schemes section below.

Yes, under PMFBY (Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana). Maize is a kharif food crop, so the farmer’s premium is capped at 2% of the sum insured (1.5% if grown as a rabi crop in your area). Enrolment is seasonal — check your state’s cut-off date before sowing is complete.

A single-cross hybrid tops out highest on irrigated, high-input fields, at 35–45 q/ha, well above composite/OPV varieties (25–30 q/ha) or Quality Protein Maize (30–35 q/ha), which trade some yield for lower seed cost or better nutrition respectively. The best specific hybrid for your field is the one your seed dealer or KVK recommends for local disease and fall armyworm pressure.

Roughly 8–10 kg per acre (20–25 kg/ha) for hybrid maize — usually sold in smaller packs rather than large bags, since hybrid seed is bought fresh every season rather than saved.

Unfilled patches on a cob usually trace back to moisture stress or extreme heat right at silking, which disrupts pollination, or to a boron deficiency in the soil. Since silking is the single most water-sensitive stage of the whole crop, protecting that one irrigation matters more than almost any other single decision.

Yes — rabi maize (sown mid-October to mid-November) and a short spring crop (late January to February) are both grown in assured-irrigation pockets of Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, and typically out-yield the kharif crop since they escape monsoon waterlogging risk and fall armyworm pressure builds up less. The trade-off is that both depend entirely on 4–6 irrigations rather than the monsoon.

Mancozeb or propiconazole, sprayed at first appearance and repeated after 10–12 days if humid weather continues. Choosing a hybrid with local resistance to the disease and rotating out of maize for a season on badly affected fields both cut how often you need to spray.

Soft, discoloured, hollow stalks near the base that snap in moderate wind are the classic sign of post-flowering stalk rot, worse in a crop stressed by drought or fed too much nitrogen relative to potassium late in the season. Harvesting a badly affected field early, rather than waiting, avoids further stalk and ear loss.

Yes — a legume like cowpea, soybean or urad sown between maize rows is a common practice, especially on rainfed kharif fields, since it adds a second harvest from the same land and the legume fixes some nitrogen for the following crop. Adjust row spacing and the maize fertilizer dose slightly rather than applying this page’s sole-crop recommendations unchanged.