Indigenous technical knowledge on drought mitigation techniques on yield of groundnut and adoption of farmers in semi-arid regions of Andhra Pradesh

ITKS in Groundnut

Abstract

Frontline demonstrations were conducted to evaluate and promote Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK) related to drought mitigation strategies in groundnut cultivation. The demonstrated ITK practices included summer deep ploughing, sub-soiling with a chisel plough following summer showers, application of farmyard manure, sowing across the slope, and the creation of dead furrows at 2-meter intervals with a depth of 30 cm. A total of ten demonstrations were organized each year during the kharif season of 2018, 2019 & 2020 in farmers’ fields of Bodabanda and Venkatapuram villages in western part of Kurnool district, Andhra Pradesh to showcase the effectiveness of these traditional techniques. The results from the frontline demonstrations indicated that groundnut demo plot recorded the highest number of pods (22, 18.1 and 22.3) and yield (1498, 1511 and 1496 kg ha^-1) in the years 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively. In the demo plot, an extra income of Rs. 16587/- ha^-1, Rs. 19375/- ha^-1 and Rs 17687/- ha^-1 were recorded in the years 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively. The technology gap of demonstration field was 177 kg ha^-1, 156 kg ha^-1 and 166 kg ha^-1 and an average technology index of 8.32% was observed with demonstration fields during three consecutive years. The highest per cent change in adoption was recorded for summer deep ploughing (79.17). The degree of effectiveness of summer deep ploughing ITK practice ranks first with 2.29 mean score and lowest was recorded in forming dead furrows at intervals of every 2 meters, each with a depth of 30 cm with mean 1.88.