© 2019 PP House Assessment of Yield Gaps in Chickpea Producon in Shimla District of Himachal Pradesh Neelam Kumari * , Ashok K. Thakur and N. S. Kaith Dr Y S Parmar University of Horculture and Forestry, Krishi Vigyan Kendra Shimla, Rohru, H.P. (171 207), India Though substanal progress has been made in evolving techniques to obtain high yields of pulses, however, their producvity has remained lower than the potenal yields for the last few decades. Acreage and producvity of pulse crop is declining in Himachal Pradesh and Shimla district as well. To boost the producon and producvity of pulse crops, Krishi Vigyan Kendra Shimla is conducng cluster frontline dem- onstraons (CFLD) on pulse crops. The main objecve of CFLD on pulses is to demonstrate and popularize the improved technologies on farmers’ fields for effecve transfer of generated technology and fill the gap between recommended pracces and farmers’ pracces and ulmately to boost the producon of pulses. Frontline demonstraons in chickpea during rabi season were studied for four years (Rabi 2015-16, Rabi 2016-17, Rabi 2017-18 and Rabi 2018-19) in Shimla district of Himachal Pradesh. There was a wide yield gap between the potenal and demonstraon yields mainly due to technology and extension gaps. CFLD on chickpea crop indicated that increase in yield over farmers’ pracce ranged from 22.22 to 68.44% over four years. In terms of economics, chickpea crop recorded higher net returns hectare -1 compared to farmer’s pracce during all the years. The benefit:cost rao of demonstraon plots ranged from 1.21 to 2.63. The technology index varied from 10.29 to 45.00% indicang the urgent need to movate the farmers to adopt economical viable technologies for increasing producon, producvity and profitability of chickpea. 1. Introducon Pulses are important component of Indian agricultural economy next to food grains and oilseeds in terms of acreage, producon and economic value (Choudhary, 2009). Pulse producon in India has fluctuated widely leading to steady decline in the per capita availability over last 20 years (Gregory et al., 2003). In India, pulses are grown on an area of 9.54 million hectare with an annual producon of 9.08 million tonnes (GOI, 2016). The producvity of pulses in Himachal Pradesh connues to be quite low over the years because of their culvaon under rainfed condions on less producve lands with no or lile inputs compared to those used for cereals. Thus, there is a great challenge for policy makers, farm sciensts, extension funconaries and farming community to enhance pulse producvity and diversify their cropping systems to meet out the naonal and local pulse requirements. Shimla district of Himachal Pradesh is situated between 30˚45’ and 31˚44’ North latude and 77˚0’ and 78˚19’ East longitude with an elevaon varying from 600 meters to 6000 meters amsl. Out of three main pulse crops i.e. black gram (Vigna mungo), rajmash (Phaseolus vulgaris) and chickpea (Cicer arienum), chickpea is only rabi season pulse crops grown by the farmers of the district. The producvity of pulses in the district is quite low compared to naonal and global average, mainly due to their culvaon under rainfed and marginal lands besides poor crop management pracces (Choudhary, 2009). Besides this, lack of technical knowledge, unavailability of quality seed and non-adopon of plant protecon measures further aggravate the problem of poor producvity in the district (Paul et al., 2011). There exists a wide yield gaps in between the experimental plots, frontline demonstraons plots and farmers fields. Keeping in view the above facts, present invesgaon was undertaken to demonstrate and transfer the generated farm technology through CFLD on pulses under rainfed producon systems with the objectives of enhancing productivity, profitability and narrowing extension yield gaps. Technological and extension yield gaps under pulses in this comprehensive study are also presented in this paper for framing appropriate extension strategy for effecve transfer of technology to target farmers in the district and collateral socio-agro-economic environments of north-western Himalayas for sustaining the pulse producon systems. Chickpea, economic analysis, technology index Keywords: Abstract Article History Arcle ID: IJEP0326 Received in 13 th August, 2019 Received in revised form 20 th August, 2019 Accepted in final form 28 th August, 2019 Neelam Kumari e-mail: neelkumari90@gmail.com Corresponding Author Full Research Doi: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.23910/IJEP/2019.6.3.0326 International Journal of Economic Plants 2019, 6(3):143-146 143