INTRODUCTION:

India is expected to produce 109 million metric tones of wheat by 2020 with annual rate of increase in production of about 2.2 per cent while present rate of annual increase is about 1.0 per cent. Recent yield plateau is a major concern in highly productive Northwestern plain zone. Expectation of consumers for wheat quality is bound to very in changing socio-economoc scenario. Value added wheat products that can be consumed instantly would dominate the domestic market. Wheat demand for bread, biscuit and pasta product is expected to be 26.6, 35.3 and 2.5 lakh tonnes respectively by 2012 which is almost threefold in comparison to some in 1991(Mishra,2006). With tremendous human resource end emerging food processing technologies India has a large scope to develop instant food industries, which can cater to domestic as well as global market. India’s wheat programme has to gear up to meet the equality requirement of domestic and international market.

In the world, wheat is cultivated on a wast area of nearly 154 million hectares. It is the second important food crop being next to rice and contributes to the total food grain production of the country to extent of about 25 percent grown over an area of the million hactares. India has become third in wheat production among the whole world. Wheat is an important crop of Madhya Pradesh covering about 39.93 lakh hectares with the average yield of 1915 kg per hectare (2006-07). The production of the state is 10 per cent of the total wheat production of the country. In Rewa district, 168.2 thousand hectare of land is used for wheat cultivation. In which had average yield of 1237 kg/ha in year 2006-07 (Director of Agriculture, Bhopal, M. P.) which is less than the optimum.

In Raipur Karchuliyan block comes under Rewa district. In which wheat is grown on the larger area but the production is not upto the mark. Non adoption of recommended wheat production technology by the farmers is one of the important reasons for low yields. There is wide gap between the available recommended wheat Production technology and its adoption by the farmers. The investigation therefore has been analysed to determine various factors, variable and their association. This study covers the following objectives:

1. To find out the knowledge and adoption gap of wheat growers.

2. To find out the association between socio-economic factors with knowledge and adoption gap of wheat growers.

3. To find out the constraints responsible for low production of wheat.

METHODOLOGY:

The present study was carried out in Raipur Karchuliyan block of Rewa district (Madhya Pradesh). The area was selected purposively being one of the major wheat- growing districts. There are comprises 28 Rural Agriculture Extension Officers (R.A.E.Os.) circles in the block. Out of which, ten R.A.E.O’s. Circles were selected randomly and from each selected R.A.E.Os. Circle two villages and from each village 12 farmers were also- selected randomly thus, total 120 farmers were selected as respondents for the purpose of this study. Primary data were collected through pre-tested interview schedule. The data were statistically analysed for the test of significance, which was confined to Chi-square test (c²) at 5% level of significance with required degrees of freedom (D.F.)

FINDINGS:

Table 1: Distribution of the respondents according to their level of knowledge regarding improved wheat production technology

Category	Frequency (N=120)	Percentage
Low knowledge level	26	21.67
Medium knowledge level	54	45.00
High knowledge level	40	33.33

Data in Table-1 show that majority of the respondents (45%) had medium level of knowledge, followed by 33.33 per cent who had high level of knowledge and it was observed that 21.67 per cent had low level of knowledge. On the basis of results the medium level of knowledge percentages was very high. It may be due to lack of awareness and lack of proper information regarding recommended wheat production technology. The same results was also observed by Waghmare and Pandit (1982).

Table 2: Distribution of the respondents according to their level of adoption gap regarding improved wheat technology

Category	Frequency (N=120)	Percentage
Low adoption gap level	35	20.00
Medium adoption gap level	61	50.83
High adoption gap level	24	29.17

Data in Table-2 show that 50.83 per cent of respondents had medium level of adoption gap regarding recommended wheat production technology, followed by 29.17 per cent of them having low level of adoption gap and only 20.00 per cent had high level of adoption gap of recommended wheat production technology. The reason behind that more frequency in medium level adoption gap due to unavailability of improved seed, high cost of insecticide/ pesticide and lack of irrigation facility about wheat production technology. Ram (1986) was also reported same type of information in case of adoption of improved varieties of wheat.

Data in Table-3 reveals that the socio-economic factors i.e. education, land holding, annual income, availability of input, availability of irrigation facility and farm equipment had significantly associated with the knowledge of farmers regarding wheat production technology. In case of adoption gap, education had been significantly associated with wheat technology i.e. more gap among the illiterates and less gap among the educated respondents, lands holding had been significantly associated with adoption gap which indicate that who had small land holdings had more adoption gap as compared to big land holders. Annual income also had significant association, which means those who had more income had less adoption gap. Non-availability of inputs, irrigation and farm equipment also created more adoption gap. Sinha et. al. (1988) and Singh et. al. (1998) were also reported that education, land holding, annual income, input, irrigation facility and farm equipment had significantly associated with the level of knowledge and adoption gap of the farmer’s of recommended wheat production technology.

Table 3: Association of socio-economic factors with knowledge and adoption gap of recommended wheat production technology.

Factors	Knowledge			Adoption gap
Factors	c²	d.f.	C	c²	d.f.	C
Age	7	4	-	8.64	4	-
Education	14.9*	4	0.33	32.09*	2	0.45
Land holding	14.86*	4	0.33	23.41*	2	0.4
Annual income	16.34*	4	0.34	14.73*	2	0.33
Availability of input	10.15*	4	0.27	11.42*	4	0.29
Availability of irrigation facility	10.57*	1	0.28	8.53*	2	0.25
Farm equipment	11.56*	4	0.29	13.25*	4	0.31

* Significant at 5% level of probability.

Table-4: Responsible constraints for low yield of wheat. (N=120)

S.N.	Constraints	Percentage	Ranks
1	Unawareness about improved wheat cultivation practices	49.17	IV
2	More expensive due to high cost of cultivation	44.17	VI
3	Unavailability of improved seed	68.33	I
4	High cost of improved seed	52.50	III
5	High cost of fungicide/pesticides	45.83	V
6	Lack of modern agricultural equipment	37.50	VIII
7	Unavailability of irrigation facilities	23.33	IX
8	Lack of farm Yard Manure	39.17	VII
9	Non availability of timely information related to improved wheat production technology	66.67	II

Data in Tablc-4 reveal that according to study nine, constraints had been responsible for the low yield of wheat. Among them, about 68.33% of the farmers reported that main constraints for low yield of wheat had been non availability of improved seed non-availability of timely information, high cost of improved seed, unawareness about improved cultivation practices and high cost of fungicide/pesticide were reported by 66.67, 52.50, 49.17 and 45.83% respondents respectively. Waghmare and Pandit (!982), Ram (1986) and Sharma(1988) were also observed that Unavailability of improved seed, unawareness about improved cultivation practices, lack of irrigation facilities and high cost of fungicide/pesticides which was responsible for low production and productivity of wheat cultivation.

CONCLUSION:

On the basis of findings, it is concluded that farmers had medium knowledge and medium adoption gap of wheat production technology. The main reasons for more adoption gap had been illiteracy of farmers, small land holding, less annual income, insufficient availability of input, less irrigation facility and proper farm equipment were not available. However, the farmers were made aware about the target of yield and adoption gap of wheat technology. It is concluded that to increase the knowledge of the farmers they should be made aware about the technology through different information sources and to minimize the adoption gap and their level of technical knowledge be increased. Particularly literacy, size of holding, income, availability of inputs, irrigation, proper farm equipments and fungicides/pesticides factors be taken in consideration to minimize the adoption gap.

REFERENCES:

1. Annual progress report (2006-07), Director of Agriculture, Bhopal, Government of Madhya Pradesh Mishra, B. (2006). Wheat: Present Scenario Yojna, September Vol. 50: 8-12.

2. Ram, A. (1986) Constraints in adoption of improved varieties of wheat by the hill farmers of U.P., Vol. 22 (1&2) : 75-78.

3. Sharma, R. K. (1982). An analysis of adoption gap of recommended farm technology in wheat production among the farmers of Ambah Block, Morena district (M.P.). M.Sc. (Ag.) thesis. College of agriculture, Jabalpur (M.P.)

4. Singh, S.; Tripathi, R. S. & Singh, B. P. (1998). Technological gap in adoption of recommended wheat production practices in JAIJNSAR BHAWAR tribal farming system of Uttar Pradesh. Anu. Agric. Res 19 (2): 39-42.

5. Sinha, R. R; Kubde, V. R. and Pradhan, T. P. (1988). Impact of wheat results demonstration on knowledge, adoption and attitude of farmers of Nepal. Maha. J. Extn. Edn. 3: 139-142.

6. Waghmare, S.K. and Pandit, V.K. (1982) Constraints in adoption of wheat technology by the tribal farmers of Madhya Pradesh, Vol. 28 (1&2): 95-98.

Received on 15.01.2014 Modified on 18.02.2014

Research J. Science and Tech. 6(1): Jan.-Mar. 2014; Page 20-22