© 2019 PP House Popularizaton of Producton Technology of Gobhi Sarson (Brassica napus) through Front Line Demonstraton in Tribal Regions of Chamba District of Himachal Pradesh Anurag Sharma 1* , Rajeev Raina 1 , Manish Thakur 1 and Swat Sharma 2 1 Krishi Vigyan Kendra Chamba, Saru, District Chamba, H.P. (176 314), India 2 Dept. of Soil Science, Dr. Y. S. Parmar University of Hortculture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, H.P. (173 230), India The study was carried out during 2017–18 at farmers’ feld in three villages (Lohani, Bhatkar and Pundrenka) under Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh, India. Front line demonstraton of gobhi sarson (Brassica napus) was conducted on an area of 10 ha with actve partcipaton of 64 farmers with high yielding improved technologies composed of HPN3 variety, integrated pest management (IPM) and integrated nutrient management (INM). The results revealed the increase in average yield under front line demonstratons by 2.16% as compared to the farmer’s practce. Improved technology gave higher net return of Rs. 10908 -ha -1 with beneft cost rato 0.49 as compared to local check (INR 7600 ha -1 , beneft cost rato 0.44). 1. Introducton Gobhi sarson (Brassica napus) is a new emerging oilseed crop having limited area of cultvaton. Gobhi sarson is a long duratoncrop (more than 155 days) confned to Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana (Kumar et al., 2009). Among the rabi oilseed crops, gobhi sarson (Brassica napus L.) is a high yielding oilseed crop suitable for high fertle soils under assured irrigaton conditons. Moreover, it contains higher oil content (41–45%) of good quality having high recovery of essental faty acids i.e. oleic, linoleic and linolenic acid. B. napus is a hybrid evolved from B. rapa (syn. B. campestris) and B. oleracea (wild mustard) through crossbreeding (OECD, 1997). All parts of the rapeseed plant are utlized: seeds are used for the producton of oil for human nutriton, or for biodiesel; leaves are consumed as vegetables (mainly in Asia) and as animal fodder; oilseed cake and rapeseed meal (afer hexane extracton), being by-products of oil processing, are used as protein-rich animal feed; dried stalks are used as domestc fuel. B. napus or rapeseed is mainly cultvated because its seeds yield about 40% oil. Oil content (%) was determined by taking a sample of seeds of each plot of all the replicatons following the standard method (AOAC, 1960). India is the third largest rapeseed oil producer in the world afer China and Canada with 12% of world’s total producton. This crop accounts for nearly a third of the oil produced in India, making it the country’s key edible oil-seed crop. Due to the gap between domestc availability and actual consumpton of edible oil, India has to resort to import of edible oil with a projected demand for edible oil at more than 20 million tonnes in 2014–15. Gobhi sarson is the predominant crop grown during rabi season afer paddy or maize on rainfed farms of the study area. Gobhi sarson requires relatvely cool temperature of below 25 °C and adequate supply of soil moisture during the growing season. It is also grown in certain tropical and sub tropical regions as a winter crop. Indian mustard is reported to grow well in areas having 250 to 400 mm of rainfall and has an efcient photosynthetc response at 15–20 °C temperature. Sowing tme is the most vital non- monetary input to achieve target yields in mustard. Sowing tme also infuences phenological development of crop plants through temperature and heat units. Sowing at optmum tme gives higher yields due to suitable environment that prevails at all the growth stages of the crop. Lack of suitable high yielding varieties as well as poor knowledge about producton practces are described as main reasons for low productvity of gobhi sarson in the district. The productvity of gobhi sarson could be increased by adoptng recommended scientific and sustainable management practces using a suitable high yielding cultvar. In order to get optmum yield of this crop, selecton of variety, seed rate and seed treatment are the most important factors to Gobhi sarson, front line demonstraton, improved technology Keywords: Abstract Article History Artcle ID: IJEP0287 Received in 12 th February, 2019 Received in revised form 19 th February, 2019 Accepted in fnal form 23 rd February, 2019 Anurag Sharma e-mail: anuragiias@gmail.com Corresponding Author Doi: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.23910/IJEP/2019.6.1.0287 018 Full Research International Journal of Economic Plants 2019, 6(1):018-020