European Journal of Biotechnology and Bioscience

Authors
PK Misra, PN Singh, SN Singh, Pardeep Kumar

Abstract
Tomato is a major vegetable crop of Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh. But the productivity of tomato are very low in this district due to lack of knowledge and partial adoption of recommended package of practice by tomato cultivators. The present study was undertaken to found the yield gap through FLDS on tomato crop. The Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Varanasi conducted Frontline demonstration on 10 farmers for each year since 2010-11, 2011-12 & 2012-13 in different locations of Varanasi district. Prevailing farmers’ practices were treated as control for comparison with recommended practices. In the three years data it was observed that mulching reduced weed count, labour required for weeding and frequency of irrigations. Adoption of IPM practices helped in managed the incidence of pest and diseases. Due to this an average yield of 643.83 q/ha was obtained in demonstrated plot over control (522.66 q/ha) with an additional yield of 121.16 q/ha and the increasing the average tomato productivity by 23.18 per cent. Besides this, the demonstrated plots gave higher gross return, net return with higher benefit cost ratio when compared to farmer’s practice.