Horizontal spread of improved variety of wheat through front line demonstration

The frontline demonstration (FLD) is the concept of demonstrating a new technology for the first time by a multidisciplinary team of scientists in the farmer's field before being fed into the main extension system. The primary goal of FLDs on wheat variety HD-3086 is to demonstrate the performance of the newly released variety in farmers' fields under various farming situations and to disseminate this variety in the country's most remote areas. The Krishi Vigyan Kendra Ajmer has carried out front line demonstrations on wheat variety HD-3086 covering an area of 13.2 ha of 32 farmers' fields from 2014–2015 to 2018–19 to exhibit the yield performance of the latest variety and compare it with farmer's practice. The result showed that the improved variety seed of HD-3086 produced the highest yield ranges of 56.00 qt/ha to 70.00 qt/ha, with an average of 62.02 in front line demonstrations. The percentage of increase in yield ranges from 10.97 to 28.47 over farmers' practice. The same trend was found in the case of average gross and average net monetary returns, which were Rs. 133096/-and Rs. 99970/-ha and for control Rs. 106372/-and Rs. 74584/-ha, respectively. The Benefit cost ratio for demonstration and control field was 4.01 and 3.34, respectively. The overall performance of the improved wheat variety HD-3086 along with good agricultural practices motivated FLD farmers to use the produce as seed in subsequent seasons. Farmers of FLDs sold 630 q seeds of variety HD-3086 of wheat to 310 farmers of nearby 21 villages and sowing was done in approximately 550 ha area during Rabi 2020–21.