TECHNOLOGICAL GAP IN RECOMMENDED CASTOR PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY

Abstract

Agriculture is the backbone of Indian economy. In India, oilseed crops constitute the second largest agriculture produce next to food grains. Castor is an important cash crop for farmer as well as for country too as it fetches valuable foreign exchange by export of seeds, oil and derivatives to all over the world. The present study was conducted in Patan District of Gujarat State. Among the nine talukas of Patan district, only Patan, Saraswati and Harij this three talukas of Patan district were selected purposively for the reason having highest area under castor cultivation as compared to other talukas of the district. The multi-stage sampling (three stage) technique was used for selection of talukas, villages and respondents. Ex-post facto research design was used for this study. The study was conducted to know the technological gap of castor growers of Patan district. Technological gap has been defined as the proportion of gap in the adoption of castor production technology and it is expressed in percentage. In the present study technological gap was operationalized on the division in adoption of castor production technology by the castor growers and expressed in percentage. revealed that the high technological gap was observed in plant protection measures 75.40 per cent followed by seed treatment 71.00 per cent, weed control 68.75 per cent, FYM 64.00 per cent, crop rotation 58.35 per cent, chemical fertilizer 51.77 per cent, sowing time 45.10 per cent, spacing 40.67 per cent, seed rate 36.00 per cent, recommended variety 30.33 per cent, harvesting 27.85 per cent, interculturing 21.90 per cent and irrigation schedule 16.00 per cent, which were ranked as first to thirteen, respectively.