A makhana crop spends most of its life fully submerged — planted in pond mud, growing underwater for months, and surfacing only near harvest. That's not an incidental detail of how it's farmed; it's the entire reason Bihar's flood-prone wetlands, land that ruins most other crops, are exactly where this one thrives. Here's the season laid out month by month.
What a "chaur" actually is
Before the calendar makes sense, the word does. A chaur is a natural, low-lying depression in North Bihar's floodplain that fills with water during the monsoon and, depending on its depth and the year's rainfall, holds that water for months or year-round. Some are large and shared by several villages; others are small enough to belong to a handful of families. Alongside purpose-dug ponds, chaurs are one of the main habitats where makhana has traditionally been grown — not because someone chose to farm a wetland, but because the wetland was already there and this happened to be a plant that could use it.
Planting: seed goes into mud, not soil
The cycle usually begins around spring, when growers either transplant young seedlings raised in a nursery bed or sow seed directly into the pond's mud floor, in water shallow enough to work in by wading. Unlike a dryland crop going into tilled soil, this planting step happens with the field already wet — there's no ploughing, no dry seedbed, no irrigation schedule to set up. The water is simply already there, which is the whole point.
The long submerged middle: months underwater
This is the part of the calendar that has no real equivalent in most other crops. Once established, the plant spends the bulk of the season — commonly several months through the hotter, wetter stretch of the year — rooted in the pond bed with its large, spiny leaves spreading across the surface and its developing flowers and seed pods forming below the waterline. It isn't irrigated periodically the way a field crop is; it needs sustained standing water for essentially this entire stretch. A pond that dries out partway through the season is a failed season, not a stressed one.
This is also where Bihar's geography stops being incidental. A crop that needs months of reliable standing water needs land that reliably holds water for months — and North Bihar's river-fed chaurs and ponds, recharged by monsoon flooding, are built to do exactly that in a way a dry field simply isn't.
Flowering: a short, easy-to-miss window
The plant flowers while still submerged or just at the surface, typically through the monsoon months, with small purple-white blooms that are easy to miss unless you're looking for them across a pond of spiky leaves. Flowering timing is one of the more variable parts of the calendar — it shifts with water temperature, depth, and how the monsoon itself is behaving that year, which is part of why growers describe watching the pond rather than working from a fixed date on paper.
Harvest: pulled by hand, seed by seed
Harvest commonly falls somewhere between August and October, though the exact window moves depending on the region and how the season played out. Workers wade into the pond, often waist- or chest-deep, and pull the spiky seed pods out by hand — there's no mechanised harvesting method for this crop, and that's unlikely to change soon given how the pods grow scattered across a submerged bed rather than in a neat, accessible row. The pods are cracked open on the spot for the raw seed inside, which then goes on to drying, grading, and eventually popping — the steps that turn a raw pond seed into the makhana you'd recognise in a pack.
Why "flood-prone" cuts both ways here
North Bihar's flood risk is real and genuinely disruptive for a lot of conventional agriculture in the region — that's not something to wave away. But it's worth being precise about what that means for a crop like this one. Land that floods unpredictably is a liability for a dryland grain crop that needs its roots out of standing water. For a plant that's evolved to spend most of its life submerged, the same flooding that damages a wheat or maize field is closer to the plant's natural habitat than an obstacle to it. That doesn't mean every flood is good news — flooding that arrives too early, too deep, or too late in the cycle can still damage flowering or complicate harvest timing, and growers manage that risk carefully rather than treating it as a free resource. The honest version is that this crop turns a regional liability into a usable asset more often than most others can, not that flooding is simply good for it.
A calendar, not a guarantee
None of these windows are fixed the way a factory production schedule is. Planting, flowering, and harvest all shift year to year with rainfall, temperature, and how individual ponds behave — which is part of why makhana has stayed a crop grown by people who know their specific ponds well, rather than one that's been standardised the way row crops often are. The calendar above is the general shape of a season; the specifics are decided by the water, same as they always have been.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to grow a makhana crop? A single crop cycle runs roughly six to eight months from planting to harvest, though the exact window shifts from pond to pond and year to year depending on water levels and local weather.
What is a chaur? A chaur is a natural, low-lying floodplain wetland in North Bihar that fills with water during the monsoon and holds it, sometimes for most of the year — one of the main habitats where makhana is traditionally grown, alongside dug ponds.
Does makhana need to be fully underwater to grow? Yes, for most of its growth. The plant spends months rooted in pond mud with its leaves floating on the surface and the developing seed pods forming underwater, which is why it needs sustained standing water rather than periodic irrigation.
When is makhana harvested in Bihar? Harvest is commonly reported to fall roughly between August and October, though it varies by region and by how the season's water levels and flowering played out — growers watch the ponds rather than a fixed calendar date.
Why don't floods ruin the makhana crop the way they ruin other crops? Because the plant is adapted to standing water rather than merely tolerating it — a submerged field that would drown a grain crop is closer to makhana's natural habitat. That said, flooding still has to arrive at a workable depth and timing; too much, too early, or too late can still damage a season's yield.
About Makhana Box
Every pouch we sell started in a pond somewhere in this same wetland belt, on roughly this same calendar. You can read more about where we source from on our About page, and if it's the geography and scale of Bihar's makhana industry you're curious about rather than the growing season itself, our earlier post on why Bihar grows most of the world's makhana covers that side of it. To see the raw seed this calendar produces, graded by size, visit our raw makhana page. Reach us anytime:
- Phone: +91 91559 97784
- Email: sales@makhanabox.com
This article describes general growing patterns for context and isn't a precise agricultural or meteorological reference — actual timing varies by region, pond, and year.