Introduction

Shimla district of Himachal Pradesh is situated between 30Ëš45’ and 31Ëš44’ North latitude and 77Ëš0’ and 78Ëš19’ East longitude with an elevation varying from 600 meters to 6000 meters above mean sea level and endowed with wide variety of agro-climatic conditions and soil types, that enable various pulses as vital component of hill production system. Black gram (Vigna mungo) and rajmash (Phaseolus vulgaris) during kharif and chickpea (Cicer arietinum) during rabi seasons are the three major pulse crops grown by the farmers of the district. The productivity of pulses in Himachal Pradesh is quite low compared to national and global average, mainly due to their cultivation under rainfed and marginal lands besides poor crop management practices (Choudhary, 2009; Choudhary et al., 2009). Besides this, lack of technical knowledge, unavailability of quality seed and non-adoption of plant protection measures further aggravate the problem of poor productivity in the district (Paul et al., 2011). There exists a wide yield gaps in between the experimental plots, frontline demonstrations plots and farmers’ fields.

Food legumes are the vital source of protein. These crops contain high amount of protein, macro and micro nutrients, vitamins, fibre and carbohydrates for balanced nutrition. They are rich in lysine and essential amino acids which are found only at low levels in cereal proteins (Mohmoud, 2009). Pulse production in India has fluctuated widely leading to steady decline in the per capita availability over last 20 years (Gregory et al., 2003). Blackgram (V. mungo) is an important food legume widely consumed in India. It also plays an important role in sustainable agriculture enriching the soil through biological nitrogen fixation. On account of its short duration, photosensitivity and dense crop canopy, it assumes special significance in crop intensification, diversification and conservation of natural resources and sustainability of production system (Katiyar and Dixit, 2010). The productivity of pulses in Himachal Pradesh continues to be quite low over the years because of their cultivation under rainfed conditions on less productive lands with no or little inputs compared to those used for cereals. Thus, there is a great challenge for policy makers, farm scientists, extension functionaries and farming community to enhance pulse productivity and diversify their cropping systems to meet out the national and local pulse requirements.

Keeping in view the above facts, present investigation was carried out to demonstrate and transfer the generated farm technology through FLDs’ in pulses under rainfed production systems with the objectives of enhancing productivity, profitability and narrowing extension yield gaps.

Materials and Methods

2.1.  Yield increase

Frontline demonstrations on pulse crop blackgram were conducted by KVK Shimla during Kharif 2016-19 for consecutive four years. A total of 35 ha area was covered under frontline demonstration on blackgram under rainfed conditions in 29 villages on 294 farmers’ fields during all the years under study.  In frontline demonstrations, full package of practices was adopted whereas in the farmers’ practice, existing practices being used by the farmers of the area were followed (Table 1).

Table 1: Comparison of recommended practices demonstrated and farmers’ practice in blackgram technologies in Shimla district of Himachal Pradesh

The primary data on yield and farmers’ practice was collected from the beneficiary farmers. The yield increase in demonstrations over farmers’ practice (YIOFP) was calculated by using the following formula:

YIOFP (%)= ((Demonstration plot yield-Farmer's plot yield)÷ Farmers's plot yield)×100

2.2.  Assessment of technology gap, extension gap and technology index

The estimation of technology gap, extension gap and technology index were done using following formula (Samui et al., 2000):

i) Technology gap=Potential yield-Demonstration plot yield

ii) Extension gap=Demonstration plot yield-Farmer^' s plot yield             

iii) Technology index (%)= ((Pi-Di )÷Pi )×100

Where,

Pi= Potential yield of i^th crop

Di= Demonstration yield of i^th crop

2.3.  Economic analysis of cluster FLD on blackgram

Cost of cultivation of blackgram include cost of inputs like seed, fertilizers, pesticides etc. not available with the farmers and purchased by the farmers (in farmers practice) or supplied by the KVK (in recommended practice) as well as hired labour (if any), sowing charges by bullocks or tractor (if any) and post-harvest operation charges (if any) paid by the farmers. The farmers’ family labour was not taken into consideration in the present study. The gross and net returns were worked out accordingly by taking cost of cultivation and price of grain yield of respective crop into consideration. Additional costs in frontline demonstrations include expenditure on improved technological inputs in frontline demonstrations over farmers’ practice. Similarly, benefit-cost ratio was worked out as a ratio of returns and corresponding costs.

Results and Discussion

3.1.  Yield

Perusal of the data in Table 2 revealed that with the adoption of recommended practices in frontline demonstration of pulse crops, the yield can be raised by 7.22 to 54.84% in blackgram over the farmers’ practice. This superiority of recommended practices in frontline demonstration over farmers’ practice was also reported by Sagar and Chandra (2004), Vaghasia et al. (2005), Mitra and Samajdar (2010) and Balai et al. (2012). The year to year fluctuation in yield and cost of cultivation can be explained on the basis of variation in prevailing social, economic and microclimatic conditions of that particular village.

Table 2: Technology gap, extension gap and technology index in blackgram in Shimla district of Himachal Pradesh

3.2.  Technology gap, extension gap and technology index

The technological gap shows the gap in the recommended practices frontline demonstrations yield over potential yield and it ranged from 1.98 to 5.40 qha^-1 in blackgram (Table 2). The observed technology gap may be attributed to dissimilarity in soil fertility status and weather conditions. Similar findings were documented by Hiremath and Nagaraju (2009). Hence to narrow down the gap between the yield of recommended practices and farmers’ practice location specific recommendation appears to be necessary.

The extension gap which ranged from 0.70 to 3.40 qha^-1 in blackgram during the period of study emphasized the need to educate the farmers through various means for the adoption of recommended and improved agricultural production technologies to reverse this trend of wide extension gap. The feasibility of the evolved technology in the farmer’s fields is indicated by the technology index. The lower the technology index more is the feasibility of the technology (Mishra et al., 2007). In blackgram crop, technology index varied from 13.20 to 36.00%. Reduction of technology index in general over the year of study clearly exhibited the feasibility of technologies demonstrated in frontline demonstrations.

3.3.  Economic analysis

The economic analysis of the data (Table 3) for the study period for blackgram clearly revealed that the gross return, net returns and benefit: cost ratios were higher in frontline demonstrations where recommended practices were followed as compared to farmers’ practice indicating higher profitability. The benefit cost ratios of demonstration plots ranged from 1.62 to 2.68 in blackgram. Similar findings were also reported by Kumari et al. (2007).

Table 3: Economic analysis of cluster FLD on blackgram in Shimla district of Himachal Pradesh

Conclusion

The wide gap between potential and demonstration yield in black gram (V. mungo) was mainly due to technological and extension gaps. The productivity of the pulse crops can be improved under rainfed conditions by adopting the improved agricultural technologies in the Shimla district. It is also observed that higher extension gap emphasized that there is further need to educate and motivate farmers for adoption of improved technologies, so that marginal farmers with limited resources could improve their livelihood and diversify their farming situation.

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