Promotion of short duration rice variety Gotra Bidhan-1 (IET 17430) through frontline demonstrations in terai region of West Bengal.

Rice is a main crop in the terai region of West Bengal, India where it grows extensively under rainfed condition during monsoon months. The participatory approaches revealed the real problem associated with rice cultivation and it has been found that the farmers of this geographic regions are in urgent need of a short duration high yielding rice variety in lieu of the traditional long duration variety MTU-7029 to catch the rabi season in time. Considering the factual need of the farming community, the front line demonstration has been planned by the KVK and FLDs were conducted in an area of 56.53 hectares involving 306 farmers in eleven adopted villages of the KVK across five different blocks of Coochbehar district. It was revealed that the yield of newly introduced rice variety Gotra Bidhan-1(G-B-1) increased successively over the years in demonstration plots and with little increase in cost of cultivation under demonstration a higher return was achieved. The technology gap, ranging between 14.0-7.0 -1 -1 q ha with an average of 10.83 q ha , reflected the farmers’ cooperation in carrying out the demonstrations with encouraging results. The extension gap increased slightly during the successive years (8.50 to 9.00 during 2010-11 and 9.00 to 11.50 during 2011-12). The successive decreased value of technology index reflected the feasibility of the variety in farmers’ field.