Assessment of yield gap analysis in mustard crop through front line demonstrations

Front line demonstrations have been used as an effective tool to adopt the recommended technologies and enhance the yield of different crops and to study the gap analysis. The current study was carried out with Mustard crop to evaluate the effect of frontline demonstration of improved technologies adopted for the cultivation of this crop in the district Shopian. Twelve FLD's over 30 ha of area in three villages of this district was carried out. KS101 varieties of this crop along with other improved technologies were demonstrated in the current study. The average demonstrated seed yield was 11.8qha-1 wher as the average seed yield with farmers practice was 8.47qha^-1. Average yield increase with FLD was 39.3qha^-1. The technology gap ranged from 1.7 -2.8 which was lower with the fifth year of cultivation. Extension gap showed an increasing trend towards the completion of this study i.e highest extension gap was observed in the 4th year of study which implies that more yield increase in the demonstrated plots was due to adoption of more and more improved technologies. Technology index decreased during the whole study and average index (15.7%) was observed during the current study. The lower value of Technology index depicts the higher feasibility of the technology under study. Thus the technology Index from the current study suggests that the improved technology can be further used in increased horizontal spread of the recommended technology in general and the KS101 variety of the mustard crop in particular for the district Shopian of the Kashmir valley.