Impact of FCR 15 (CTRI-SRESHTA) FCV tobacco variety in SLS & SBS regions of Andhra Pradesh

Introduction

Tobacco (Golden Leaf), the mandate crop of ICAR -National Institute for Research on Commercial Agriculture (NIRCA), is one of the important commercial crops in India. With the current annual production of about 750 x 10 6 kg cured leaf from an area of 0.45 m ha, India is the second largest tobacco producer in the world, next to China and stands also second in the export of tobacco and tobacco products after Brazil. Tobacco makes a significant contribution to national economy by way of export earnings of about 60 bn INR and excise levies of over 200 bn INR, besides providing employment and livelihood security to an estimated 45.7 million people engaged in its cultivation, curing, grading, manufacturing and marketing. The main beneficiaries of tobacco production are the small and marginal farmers, landless agricultural labourers, rural women and tribal youth. The crop is grown in area of 0.45 million hectares in over 15 states in the country. Major tobacco growing states are AP (45%), Karnataka (26%), Gujarat (14%), UP (5%), Tamil Nadu (2%), Bihar (2%) and WB (1%). India occupies second place in world tobacco production (750 m kg) after China (2300 m kg) (Vision 2050 document of CTRI). A unique feature of tobacco production in India is that myriad styles of Flue-cured Virginia (FCV) and non-FCV tobacco are cultivated under widely differing agro-ecological situations. The FCV, bidi, hookah, chewing, cigar-wrapper, cheroot, burley, Oriental, HDBRG, Lanka, Pikka, Natu etc. are the main types of tobacco grown in the country, with FCV and Burley tobacco being the main exportable types. Among all the tobacco types FCV is most important type as it is being completely controlled by the Tobacco Board under Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India. Tobacco growing areas have been broadly classified into 4 regions viz NLS (Northern Light Soils), NBS (Northern Black Soils), SLS (Southern Light Soils), SBS (Southern Black Soils) located in Andhra Pradesh and KLS (Karnataka Light Soils) located in Karnataka state. SLS and SBS regions of Andhra Pradesh comprises of Prakasam, SPSR Nellore districts. In both SLS & SBS regions together www.extensionjournal.com tobacco is being grown majorly under rainfed condition in an area of 75,000ha by 30,212 farmers with 24,696 registered barns. Siri variety of FCV tobacco released by ICAR-CTRI during 2006 used to grow majority of the farmers in SLS & SBS regions. Main constraints farmers used to face with variety was low harvesting intervals, could not withstand to heavy rains, leaf colour retention days were low and not suitable for rainfed light soils. In order to overcome these problems ICAR-NIRCA has developed and released new variety called FCR-15 (CTRI Sreshta) in 2023. Main features of the FCR-15 are FCR-15 has a leaf yield it has yield potential of 3000 kg/ha under normal conditions, it produces a total of 22-27 curable economic leaves, it was found to withstand heavy rainfall, during grand growth period with even maturity, good quality leaves and longer colour retention, possessing TMV resistance and the quality characteristics i.e.nicotine2.37-2.62%, reducing sugars 12.56-18.26%, chlorides 0.21-0.43% are in the acceptable range (Madhav, S. et al., Disruptive technologies of CTRI, 2023). Keeping this in view of these additional advantages, ICAR-NIRCA-Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kandukur has conducted on farm trials (OFT) in farmers' fields for three years (2021-2023) studied its impact over a period of time with an objective of studying the extent of adoption of FCR-15 tobacco variety, to study the socio-economic impact of adoption of FCR-15 and to find out the factors attributed to the adoption of FCR-15 variety by SLS+SBS region farmers in Andhra Pradesh.

Methodologies

Totally 150 large scale on farm demonstrations covering 150 ha area on FCR-15 against locally grown Siri variety as control were conducted by Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kandukur from 2021-22 to 2023-24 in SLS and SBS regions of the state as shown in Table1. In order to study its impact, from SLS region out of 6 tobacco auction platforms 60 farmers (10 farmers from each platform) and in SBS region our of 5 tobacco auction platforms 50 farmers (10 from each platform) were selected using stratified random sampling method making all together 110 (60+50) farmers for the study as shown in Table 2. Ex-post facto research design was used for the study. The data on production, productivity, attributing factors for higher adoption, gross income, net income, BC ratio, extension gap, technology gap and technology index were collected through well-developed questionnaire along with interview method as well as secondary data from tobacco board. The results obtained during three years were analyzed using appropriate statistical tools viz., mean, standard deviation, descriptive statistics and the results were concluded at the respective levels of significances between means (p<0.05/0.01) of leaf Length, leaf breadth, leaf weight, Inter nodal length, plant height, harvest interval, economic curable leaves/plant, days to maturity between FCR-15 and Siri variety. The technology gap, extension gap and technology index were calculated as per Samui et al., (2000) [5] . Farmers feedback on perceived attributes of innovation were studies using 5 factors like relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, trialability and satisfaction.

Operationalization of various parameters

Results and Discussion

The data obtained through interview schedule and secondary data on impact of FCR-15 FCV tobacco variety were subjected to analysis and explained in the following heads. [9] . [3] . [3] . The technology gap of 1080 kg/ha was recorded in FCR-15 variety and in case of Siri it was 1929kg/ha i.e., yield gap between demonstrated technology and potential yield that could still to be minimized with favorable climactic and soil factors. Similar results were also expressed by Babu et al.

2023 [3] . The technology index shows the feasibility of the variety at farmer's field. The lower the value of technology index more is the feasibility. Data is Table 5 revealed that the technology index was 36.0% in FCR-15 variety where as it was 55.1% in Siri variety suggesting the superiority and better performance of FCR-15 compared to local. It shows more feasibility of new variety disseminations instate.

Better performance of FCR-15 variety was also reported by Babu et al. 2023 [3] in his research study conducted in Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh. In order to find out significant factors contributed for the better performance of demonstrated variety FCR-15 over Siri was 9 crucial parameters were taken in to consideration and they were subjected to statistical analysis. From the data presented in Table .6 it is evident that leaf length, leaf breadth, leaf weight, plant height, harvest interval, economical curable leaves and yield were found to be significant in FCR-15 compared to Siri at 0.01 level of probability. Whereas internodal length was significant at 0.05 level of probability and there was no significant difference between FCR-15 and Siri vis-à-vis days to maturity. Based on this in could be concluded that the above factors were performed better in FCR-15 compared to Siri which have direct positive impact on net returns of the farmers and hence it adoption was very high (93%) with 3 years of its introduction. CTRI Sreshta variety having the ability to with stand rain damage during crop growth and also have more curable leaves was reported by Sarala et al. (2025) [7] and Sheshu Madhav et al. (2023) [8] . [13] , Babu et al. (2023) [3] and annual report of ICAR-NIRCA, 2023.

Graph 2: Cost economics of FCR-15 over Siri during period of 3 years

The higher net returns were due to various factors like higher leaf weight, leaf length, leaf breadth, plant height, more umber of leaves per plant, more economically curable leaves lead to higher yields as well as higher market price obtained in the demonstration technology over control plots.

Impact of FCR-15 FCV tobacco variety: Impact refers to the long-term, tangible changes in behavior, knowledge, skills, and socio-economic conditions (such as increased income or productivity) resulting from frontline extension and advisory services. It acts as a measure of effectiveness, assessing how well our technology achieve the ultimate objectives, such as adoption of new technology or improved quality of life. In this context the impact of FCR-15 FCV tobacco variety was assessed and given hereunder.

Acknowledgement

Acknowledgement "This research study was supported by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Department of Agricultural Research and Education, Government of India".

References

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