Impact of frontline demonstrations on yield of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) in Amreli district of Gujarat state

Abstract

Front Line demonstrations (FLDs) is a unique approach to provide an direct interface between researcher and farmers as the scientists are directly involved in planning, execution and monitoring of the demonstrations. The present study was conducted to assess the impact of frontline demonstrations of chickpea crop in the Amreli district of Gujarat state. Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is a highly nutritious grain legume crop and is widely appreciated as health food as well as high return crop. Front line demonstrations were conducted at 90 farmers’ fields under 25.5 ha, to demonstrate production potential and economic benefits of improved technologies. Study revealed that improved cultivation practices comprised under FLDs viz., recommended varieties, seed rate, timely sowing and plant protection technology resulted in increase in yield in gram crop over the check plots. The improved technologies gave higher yields and recorded a mean yield of 19.72, 20.90 and 21.11 q/ha chickpea yield during 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18, respectively which was 28.7, 19.8, and 21.7 percent higher compared to prevailing farmers practice.