Cluster Frontline Demonstration for Enhancing the Yield of Chickpea in Khargone District of Madhya Pradesh

Present study was conducted in Khargone (West Nimar) district of Madhya Pradesh during the year 2016–17 to 2019–20. Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Khargone conducted 200 Cluster frontline demonstrations on Chickpea in 80 ha area under real farming situations in the farmer’s fields of six adopted villages of district Khargone (M.P.). The objective was to transfer the technology to increase the productivity of chickpea through various types of interventions viz., Varietal, Seed treatment, Plant Protection, Khizpbium, Irrigation, STV based Fertilizers application and IPM. High yielding variety of Chickpea RVG 201 was given to the farmers and basal application of 20 kg N + 60 kg P₂O₅ + 20 kg K₂O /ha in the form of DAP, MOP and Zinc sulphate @ 25 kg/ha as per demonstration were advised. The seed was treated before sowing with Carboxin 75% WP 2 g + Trichoderma 5 g/kg seed and Rhizobium 5g + PSB 5g + Ammonium Molybdate 1 g/kg of seed as per recommendations to control seed infection. It was observed that in cluster front line demonstrations, the improved chickpea variety RVG 201 recorded an average yield of 1809, 2240, 2147 and 2280 kg/ha were much higher than as compared to average yield of farmers practices 1452, 1821, 1780 and 1841 kg/ha respectively during 2016–17, 2017–18, 2018–19 and 201920. The average percentage increased in the yield over farmer’s practices was 24.58, 23.0, 20.61 and 23.84 for the year 2016–17, 2017–18, 2018–19 and 2019–20 respectively. Technology gap was found 10 kg to 441 kg over the potential yield. The highest extension gap of 439 kg/ha was recorded in 2019–20 and the lowest was observed 357 kg/ha in 2018–19. From these results it is evident that the performance of improved variety was found better than the local check under same environment conditions. Farmers were motivated by results of agro-technologies applied in the CFLDs trials and it is expected that they would adopt these technologies in the coming years.