© 2022 PP House Impact of Front-line Demonstrations on Integrated Crop Management in Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus L.) B. Raja Madhushekar 1 , G. Narendar 2 , M. Goverdhan 3 and K. Avil Kumar 4 Print ISSN 0976-3988 Online ISSN 0976-4038 Artcle AR2999 DOI: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.23910/1.2022.2999 Research Article International Journal of Bio-resource and Stress Management 1 Dept. of Agricultural Extension, District Agricultural Advisory Transfer of Technology Centre, Bhuvanagiri, Hyderabad (508 116), India 2 Dept. of Agronomy, District Agricultural Advisory Transfer of Technology Centre, Bhuvanagiri, Hyderabad (508 116), India 3 Dept. of Agronomy, Regional Agricultural Research Station, Palem, Nagarkurnool, Hyderabad (509 215), India 4 Dept. of Agronomy, Water Technology Centre, Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad (500 030), India RECEIVED on 01 st April 2022 RECEIVED in revised form on 20 th August 2022 ACCEPTED in fnal form on 09 th September 2022 PUBLISHED on 20 th September 2022 IJBSM September 2022, 13(9):935-942 htps://pphouse.org/ijbsm.php Citaton (VANCOUVER): Madhushekar et al., Impact of Front-line demonstrations on Integrated Crop Management in Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus L.) . International Journal of Bio-resource and Stress Management, 2022; 13(9), 935-942. HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.23910/1.2022.2999. Copyright: © 2022 Madhushekar et al. Tis is an open access article that permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium after the author(s) and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: Legal restrictions are imposed on the public sharing of raw data. However, authors have full right to transfer or share the data in raw form upon request subject to either meeting the conditions of the original consents and the original research study. Further, access of data needs to meet whether the user complies with the ethical and legal obligations as data controllers to allow for secondary use of the data outside of the original study. Confict of interests: Te authors have declared that no confict of interest exists. T he present investigation was conducted in ten villages under DAATTC, five each in Nalgonda and Bhuvanagiri districts, Telangana, India operational areas during 2018–19 to 2020–21. Total 30 demonstrations were laid out on farmers’ fields in the districts (15 in each district). The main objective of front-line demonstrations (FLDs) was to demonstrate the integrated crop management practices in Water melon for getting higher yields over farmers’ practice. The study was undertaken to do a formative and summative (outcome and impact) evaluation of the frontline demonstrations on integrated crop management in watermelon. Data was collected with the help of structured interview schedule. The result of present study revealed that average highest yield recorded was 42.95 t ha -1 in demonstration plot over control (30.57 t ha -1 ) and 40.31% average yield increase was recorded over control plot. The extension gap ranged from 10.4 t ha -1 to 16.65 t ha -1 and technology gap ranged between 13.15 t ha -1 to 27.5 t ha -1 respectively with the technology index of 33.92% during the demonstration years. Besides this, the demonstrated plots gave higher gross returns, net return with higher benefit cost ratio when compared to farmers’ practice. In present study efforts were also made to study the impact of FLD on horizontal spread which has increased by 115%. The study also revealed that there was significant and positive relationship between farming experience, labour source, farm size and yield whereas age, education and family size didn’t have any significant effect on the yield. ABSTRACT Demonstrated practice, farmers’ practice, frontline demonstrations, watermelon KEYWORDS: Open Access madhushekar80@gmail.com Corresponding 0000-0002-5638-5937 Social Science 935