diff --git a/pixi.toml b/pixi.toml
index 0fb4828..3023315 100644
--- a/pixi.toml
+++ b/pixi.toml
@@ -46,6 +46,10 @@ pytest-xdist = "*"
 [feature.with-rasterio.dependencies]
 rasterio = "*"
 
+[feature.with-rusterize.dependencies]
+# rusterize >=0.8 no longer depends on polars, but needs it for GeoDataFrame input
+polars = "*"
+
 [feature.with-rusterize.pypi-dependencies]
 rusterize = ">=0.7.1"
 
@@ -73,6 +77,10 @@ furo = "*"
 numpydoc = "*"
 sphinxext-opengraph = "*"
 xvec = "*"
+polars = "*"
+
+[feature.docs.pypi-dependencies]
+rusterize = ">=0.7.1"
 
 [feature.docs.tasks]
 docs-build = { cmd = "sphinx-build -b html . _build/html", cwd = "docs" }
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 91895c2..03317f4 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -38,7 +38,8 @@ dynamic=["version"]
 [project.optional-dependencies]
 dask = ["dask-geopandas"]
 rasterize = ["rasterio"]
-rusterize = ["rusterize>=0.7.1"]
+# rusterize >=0.8 no longer depends on polars, but needs it for GeoDataFrame input
+rusterize = ["rusterize>=0.7.1", "polars"]
 exactextract = ["exactextract", "sparse"]
 docs = [
   "geodatasets",
@@ -46,6 +47,7 @@ docs = [
   "dask-geopandas",
   "rasterio",
   "rusterize>=0.7.1",
+  "polars",  # needed by rusterize for GeoDataFrame input
   "rioxarray",
   "exactextract",
   "sparse",