Rabi crops, Kharif crops, and Zaid Crops. Differences between Rabi and Kharif Crops.

What are the differences between Rabi and Kharif Crop?

Rabi Crop	Kharif Crop
These are the crops which are sown at the beginning of the rainy season, e.g. between April and May.	They are the crops that are sown at the end of monsoon or at the beginning of winter season, e.g. between September and October.
Kharif crops are known as monsoon crops.	Rabi crops are also known as winter crops or spring crops.
Kharif crops depend on the rainfall patterns.	Rabi crops are not affected by the rainfall patterns.
Rice, maize, cotton, Jowar, Bajra etc. are Rabi Crop	Wheat, gram, peas, barley etc. are Kharif Crop.
Kharif crops require a lot of water and hot weather to grow.	Rabi crops need warm climate for seed germination and cold climate for the growth of crops.
Kharif crop flowering requires shorter day length.	Rabi crop flowering requires longer day length.
It has harvesting months from September to October.	It has harvesting months from March to April.
North and north-western parts such as Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh are important for the production of wheat and other rabi crops.	Assam, West Bengal, coastal regions of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Maharashtra, particularly the (Konkan coast) along with Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are important for the production of Kharif Crop.

In between the rabi and the kharif seasons, there is a short season during the summer months known as the Zaid season.

Some of the crops produced during ‘Zaid’ are watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber, vegetables and fodder crops. Sugarcane takes almost a year to grow