Chittoor Horticultural Zone — Guava and Tomato Cultivation

Chittoor district is Andhra Pradesh's premier horticultural district, renowned for its Allahabad Safeda guava (grown in sandy loam soil with exceptional sweetness), tomato, and banana cultivation along with mango orchards. The district's topographic diversity — from coastal plain to Eastern Ghats foothills — enables year-round vegetable and fruit production that supplies markets across South India. Chittoor's tomato-producing area around Madanapalle is often called the "California of India" for its commercial horticulture intensity. Traditional farmers in the Eastern Ghats foothills practise terrace horticulture of vegetables, interplanted with jackfruit and banana, using traditional water harvesting pits (soak pits) to supplement rainfall. The district also produces significant quantities of peanut-based groundnut oil at traditional ghani presses.