The Organic
Revival
Oilseed Crops · Oilseed

Growing mustard

Brassica juncea · also called Sarson, Raya, RaiIndian mustard, the main winter oilseed of the north and centre. It needs little water, grows on most soils that drain, and wants a cool start and a warmer finish.

Cold desert: Ladakh, Lahaul and Spiti

Our team has checked this guide against the sources at the end of the page.Winters are far too cold for a crop that grows through the winter. The short summer in Ladakh and Spiti is the season for hardier oilseed sarson types, not Indian mustard.Includes AI suggestions where no published guide covers a detail
Bright yellow flower head of Indian mustard in a flowering field
Photo: Trikutdas · CC BY-SA 4.0
Not suited here

Not a crop for this region

Winters are far too cold for a crop that grows through the winter. The short summer in Ladakh and Spiti is the season for hardier oilseed sarson types, not Indian mustard.

Where it grows nearest

Across India

When to sow it

Twelve growing regions, January to December. Your region comes first.

Not suited here

Sowing now in:Sub-tropical foothillsNorth-west plainsNorth-east hills and valleysDeccan plateauSouth interiorEast coast
  • Sow
  • Harvest
  • Today
  • Not suited here
Cold desertLadakh, Lahaul and SpitiNot suited hereTemperate HimalayaKashmir valley, Shimla, KulluSub-tropical foothillsJammu, Kangra, Dehradun
Compare all 12 regions
Temperate HimalayaKashmir valley, Shimla, KulluSub-tropical foothillsJammu, Kangra, DehradunNorth-west plainsPunjab, Haryana, DelhiGangetic plainseastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal plainsNorth-east hills and valleysAssam, Meghalaya, SikkimArid westRajasthan, Kutch, north GujaratCentral plateauMadhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, VidarbhaDeccan plateauinterior Maharashtra, Telangana, north KarnatakaSouth interiorBengaluru, Mysuru, interior Tamil NaduWest coastKerala, Goa, KonkanNot suited hereEast coastcoastal Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, coastal Andhra
Today
See the dates as a table
RegionSowNurseryTransplantHarvest
Cold desertNot suited here
Temperate HimalayaLate September to OctoberLate April to May
Sub-tropical foothills15 to 25 October (timely sowing)September, for early varietiesFirst half of November, late sownMarch to early April
North-west plainsMid October to mid NovemberMarch
Gangetic plains10 to 25 OctoberLate February to March
North-east hills and valleysLate October to mid NovemberFebruary to early March
Arid west10 to 25 OctoberLate February to March
Central plateau10 to 25 OctoberLate February to March
Deccan plateauLate October to mid NovemberFebruary to early March
South interiorLate October to NovemberFebruary to early March
West coastNot suited here
East coastNovemberFebruary

What it needs

Soil, sun and warmth

  • Soil pH1,2Part of this comes from the sources cited. The rest is an AI suggestion.

    6 to 8

    Grows on heavy and light soils alike, and does well on well drained light to medium loam. Slightly tolerant of salt, not of waterlogging. Needs a fine, firm seedbed.

  • SunlightNo published guide covers this for the Cold desert, so this is an AI suggestion. Check it with local advice before you rely on it.

    At least 6 hours a day

    Full sun in an open field.

  • Temperature1Part of this comes from the sources cited. The rest is an AI suggestion.

    Grows best at 15 to 25 °C

    Takes light frost.

    Monthly temperatures for the Cold desert aren't in the library yet.

Good neighbours1

Grows well with

Seed and the season's end

Saving seed2,4

For pure seed keep raya at least 300 m from other raya, gobhi sarson and African sarson. Pull off-type plants before flowering and again before harvest. Save seed only from plants free of stag heads.

When the seed is ready

About 75% of the pods brown or golden yellow.

Cleaning the seed

Stack the cut plants to dry, then thresh.

Sun-dry for about a week to below 8% moisture and store dry. Hybrid seed cannot be saved: buy fresh every year.

After the last picking2,4

Plough mustard straw back in; followed by a Sesbania green manure in kharif it gave the highest yields in ICAR-DRMR trials.

Rotation

Do not follow mustard with mustard where broomrape appeared. Rotate with cereals and legumes; cowpea, black gram, moth bean, sunhemp, cluster bean or sesame before mustard cut broomrape.

Sources

Where this comes from

Our team has checked this guide against the sources at the end of the page.Reviewed by our team on 13 November 2026.

These published guides are the sources. Where none of them covers a detail for this region, the page shows an AI suggestion and labels it.

  1. 3AESA based IPM package: Mustard/RapeseedNational Institute of Plant Health Management (NIPHM) with the Directorate of Plant Protection, Quarantine and Storage, Ministry of AgricultureRead the source
  2. 4Package of practices for organic production of rapeseed-mustard (Indian Farming 74(9): 14-18, September 2024)ICAR-Directorate of Rapeseed-Mustard Research, Bharatpur (Choudhary, Jat, Singh and Dotaniya), in Indian Farming, ICARRead the source
  3. 6Scope for large-scale economic cultivation of mustard (Brassica juncea L.) in non-traditional areas of Karnataka (Journal of Oilseed Brassica 17(2): 109-113, July 2026)ICAR-IARI Regional Station Wellington, ZARS Kalaburagi (UAS Raichur), IARI-RRC Dharwad, ICAR-KVK Hirehalli and ICAR (Nanjundan and others)Read the source

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