Impact of Participatory Varietal Selection on Varietal Diversification in Northern India

The Department for International Development (DFID) Project carried out during 2002-03 to 2004-05 in the state of Haryana (India) aimed at increasing wheat productivity in a sustainable way, promoting resource conservation technologies (RCTs) for the north western India, increasing the profitability of farmers in rice wheat system and training the farmers on RCTs and seed production. This paper is based on the findings of base line survey, wheat crop evaluation by farmers before and at maturity, and survey of 100 farmers in the project area. The project successfully achieved higher varietal replacement. Area under PBW 343 declined and other varieties of similar potential were being adopted. PBW 502 was ranked first by the farmers followed by PBW 343, HD 2687