Adoption behaviour of resource conservation technologies in paddy cultivation in Punjab

The study revealed that the adoption of direct seeded rice and mechanical transplanting of paddy technologies were adopted by large farmers having, higher off farm income and extension contacts with the officials of PAU and State Agriculture Department than their counterparts non-adopters. In the case of DSR adopter farmers, the yield was lowest at 6481 and 2962 kg per ha for common paddy and basmati, respectively and highest for MT at 7259 and 4713 kg per ha, respectively; yield varied between 6760 kg to 7109 kg for CM for common paddy and 3705 to 4115 kg for basmati. The reason of adoption of these technologies was save time and save water ranked first and second in DSR and solve labour problem ranked first in MT technology. Reasons for non-adoption were more weeds in case of DSR and costly machines and lack of awareness in MT. Farmers are willing to adopt mechanical transplanters provided the machinery is available with cooperative societies or on rent. More technical knowledge is required for the adoption of DSR technology. Among the problems faced in paddy cultivation, labour problem and high wage scored first and second rank, respectively in common paddy and volatility of price and only private procurement in basmati cultivation.