Technological Gap in Vegetable Production in Kullu Valley

The study was carried out on the technological gap in the recommended vegetable production system in Kullu and Manali blocks of Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh in 2004-09. A sample of 600 respondents was selected from villages. From each village 15 rich farmers and 15 poor farmers were selected on the basis of stratified random sampling technique and data were collected with the help of pre-tested interview schedule. The study revealed that majority of rich and poor resource farmers did not follow seed treatment in vegetable production. Higher gap was visible in case of seed treatment, weed management and sowing tine for both farmers’ categories. Regarding main field operations too, poor resource farmers perceived more technological gaps for operations like weed management, gap filling, plant protection, fertilizer application and irrigation. The gaps were observed for the rich resource farmers such as gap filling, fertilizer application, time of fertilizer application and plant protection but magnitude of gaps was less as compared to poor resource farmers.