Impact of frontline demonstration programme on the yield of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) in Patan District of Gujarat, India

 
Chickpea plays a significant role in improving soil fertility by fixing the atmospheric nitrogen. It leaves substantial amount of residual nitrogen for subsequent crops and adds plenty of organic matter to maintain and improve soil health and fertility. Because of its deep tap root system, chickpea can withstand drought conditions by extracting water from deeper layers in the soil profile.
 
About 90% of the global pigeon pea, 65% of chickpea and 37% of lentil area falls in India, corresponding to 93%, 68% and 32% of the global production, respectively. India is the largest chickpea producing country accounting for 64% of the global chickpea production followed by 8% contribution in Pakistan, 6% contribution in Turkey (Gaur et al., 2010). The main reason of low productivity of chickpea in district-Patan is farming community who are not adopting scientific production technology as well as scarcity of irrigation water.
 
Chickpea occupies an important niche in the rainfed farming system of resource poor farmers of the state. It is one of the most important post rainy season pulse crops grown in Gujarat state of India. Since chickpea is grow on receding residual soil moisture during the post rainy season, soil moisture is a critical factor from the begining of plant establishment to grain development and maturity. This limiting factor is much more important in a state like Gujarat, where the winter season are very short and comparatively warm and potential evaporation is far in excess of the annual rainfall. The problem of moisture stress in the primary season on soil with poor water holding capacity has been tackled to some extent by selecting early maturing varieties to fit the length of the growing season.
 
The progress of pulses has always been lukewarm in spite of the overall impressive growth of Indian agriculture. The government has focused on improving pulse production through various programme like Technology Mission in 1986, National Pulse Development Project in 1990-91, Integrateds Scheme of Oilseeds, Pulses, Oil palm and Maize in 2004, National Food Security Mission in 2007-08 and A3P i.e. Accelerated Pulses Production Programme but supply remain down the line compared to the demand and country has to heavily relied on imports to bridge the supply-demand gap. The main objective of front line demonstrations is to demonstrate newly released crop production technologies and its management practices in the farmer’s field under farming situations and at different agro climatic regions (Meena, 2011 and Narasimha Rao et al., 2007).
 
The newly and innovative technology having higher production potential under the specific cropping system can be popularized through FLD programme. The present study has been undertaken to evaluate the difference between demonstrated technologies vis-à-vis practices followed by the local farmers in chickpea crop.

The present study was carried out by the Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Samoda- Ganvada, Taluka- Siddhpur, District - Patan (Gujarat) during rabi season in the farmers field on two clusters in each year of Patan district during 2016-17 to 2017-18. In 2016-17 demonstration is laid out in 20 ha area with 50 number of demonstration in Nayka cluster in Sami Taluka and Ranod cluster in Shankheshwar Taluka and in 2017-18, demonstration is laid out in 20 ha area on 50 number of demonstration in Kathi cluster, Taluka- Sami and Orumana cluster in Taluka- Shankheshwar.
 
The soil under demonstration plot is light to medium black cotton soil and pH value was ranges from 7.2 to 8.0.The demonstrated technology is improved variety (GJG-3), optimum seed rate (Kg/ha), seed treatment by fungicide, soil inoculation by bio fungicide along with NPK-liquid consortia bio fertilizer @ 5 lit/ ha, RDF as per STV, water management at critical stages and application of IPM module for the management of insect (Specially on gram pod borer) and diseases (wilt, dry root rot and collar rot). Control plot was also kept in parallel at every demonstrative plot. The difference between demonstration package and existing farmers practice are given in Table 1.
 

 
Before conducting the demonstration, Krishi Vigyan Kendra is conducted training to the selected farmers on sowing and nutrient management, pest management and post harvest management aspect.
 
The yield data were collected from both the demonstrated technology and farmers practice by random crop cutting method and analyzed by using simple statistical tools. Selection of site and farmers’ selection were considered as suggested by Choudhary, (1999). The observation on grain yield (qtl/ha) and straw yield (qtl/ha) were recorded. Other parameters like harvest index (%), increasing in yield (%), technology gap (%), extension gap (%) and technology index were worked out as suggested by Kadian et al., (1997). The gross return, net return, cost of cultivation and benefit cost ration were also calculated. The data output were collected from both RP as well as farmers practices and finally the extension gap, technology gap, technology index along with benefit cost ratio were workout (Samui et al., 2000) as given below:
                                                 
(i)
 
(ii) 
 
(iii) Technology gap = Potential Yield - Demonstration yield
 
(iv) Extension gap = Demonstration Yield - Farmers yield
                                    
(v) 

The result indicates that the frontline demonstration has given a good impact over the farming community as they were motivated for adoption of new agricultural technology applied in the FLD plots. From the data presented in the Table 2 it is concreted that in frontline demonstration yield of GJG-3 variety performed better than traditional farmer practices. The GJG-3 recorded maximum yield 1720 kg/ha and minimum yield is 1150 kg/ha in Rabi season year 2016-17 and 2017-18 with 1600 kg/ha and 1060 kg/ha, respectively.
 

 
The data presented in Table 2 indicated that the average yield of chickpea under package demonstration was 1430 kg/ha whereas that the yield under farmers practice was 1105 kg/ha. This indicated that use of improved technology for chickpea production contributed 29.42 per cent higher production than the local practice. The above findings were also similar to the findings of Singh (2002), Poonia and Pithia (2011), Patel et al., (2013) and Raj et al., (2013).
 
Technology gap
 
The technology gap is the difference between demonstration yields over potential yield. The technology gap was ranged from 506 kg/ha in 2016-17 to 508 kg/ha in 2017-18 and average technological gap during the period of study is 570 kg/ha. The technology gap may be attributed to the dissimilarity in the soil fertility status and weather conditions and similar finding were found by Mukherjee, (2003) and Mitra and Samajdar, (2010).
 
Extension gap
 
The yield gaps presently ranging between 320 kg to 330 kg/ha and it was ranges from 320 kg/ ha in 2016-17 to 330 kg/ha in 2017-18. The average extension gap during the period of study was 325 kg/ha. This emphasized the need to educate the farmers through various means for the adoption of improved agricultural production technologies to reverse this trend of wide extension gap. More and more use of latest production technologies with high yielding variety will subsequently change this alarming trend of galloping extension gap. The new technologies will eventually lead to the farmers to discontinue the old technology and to adopt new technology (Table 2). This finding was in corroboration with the findings of Hiremath and Nagaraju (2010).
 
Technology index
 
The technology index shows the feasibility of the technology at the farmer’s field. The lower the value of technology index more is the feasibility.
 
As such, fluctuation in the technology index was ranged from 28.0% in 2016-17 to 29.0% in 2017-18 and average technology index during the period of study is 28.50% (Table 2). These findings corroborate with the findings of Mokidue et al., (2011) and Tomar (2003).

Economics evaluation of the demonstrated package revealed that its adoption involved an additional cost of Rs 2150/- per ha over farmer’s practice. The inputs and outputs prices of commodities prevailed during the study of demonstrations were taken for calculating gross return, net return and benefit cost ration (Table 3). The additional cost of cultivation during the period of study ranged from Rs. 2100/ ha in 2016-17 to 2200 per ha and average additional cost was Rs. 2150 per ha. The net return from demonstrated technology ranged from Rs 51400 per ha in 2016-17 to Rs. 28412 per ha in 2017-18 whereas in farmers practice, it ranged from Rs. 36700 in 2016-17 to Rs. 19012 in 2017-18. The average additional cost during the period of study was Rs 2150 per ha and additional net return was Rs 12050 per ha. The benefit cost ratios of under recommended practices were higher (2.31 and 2.26) as compared to farmers practice (2.02 and 1.94). This may be due to higher yield obtained under recommended practices compared to farmer’s practices. Similarly results have earlier being reported on chickpea by Tomar (2010) and Mokidue et al. (2011).