Participatory varietal and adoption behaviour evaluation for off-season tomato cultivation on rainfed sloping lands of southern Odisha Maharana Jyotshnarani1, Behera S.K., Acharya P., Jakhar Praveen2,* 1Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Orissa University of Agriculture & Technology, Semiliguda, Koraput 2ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Research Centre, Koraput, Odisha *E-mail: jrm_kvk@yahoo.com
Online published on 23 December, 2016. Abstract A study under Front Line Demonstrations (FLDs) was conducted at Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Semiliguda from 2009–2014 to evaluate the performance of tomato varieties Utkal Kumari, Utkal Raja, Utkal Pragya and Arvind. Hybrid variety Arvind’ yielded 289 q ha"1 and amid open pollinated varieties Utkal Kumari registered mean yield 213 q ha"1. The increase in fruit yield was to the tune of 47, 50, 42 and 51% for Utkal Kumari, Utkal Raja, Arvind and Utkal Pragya, respectively over Farmers ’Practice (FP). Among different cultivars; lowest extension gap of 32 q ha"1 was obtained in Utkal Pragya whereas highest extension gap of 86 q ha"1 was for variety Arvind. The technology gap for tested varieties was 187, 211, 210 and 209 q ha"1 for Utkal Kumari, Utkal Raja, Arvind and Utkal Pragya, respectively. Net returns analysis shows that hybrid variety Arvind’ fetched maximum net returns of  2, 59, 363 and 1, 70, 488 under FLD and FP, respectively. For conservation measures, maximum adoption score was recorded for contour bunding (72.3) followed by ridge furrow cultivation (65.1). Water use efficiency (WUE) was 21.1, 22.7, 41.4 and 17.9% higher in demonstration plot than FP for Utkal Kumari, Utkal Raja, Arvind and Utkal Pragya, respectively. Matrix ranking incites that Arvind’ was the most preferred variety of tomato followed by Utkal Kumari. Top Keywords Adoption, Extension gap, Off-season, Technology gap, Tomato. Top |