Improved crop technologies have a critical role in increasing crop yield and farmers’ income. The present study was undertaken to analyze the adoption of recommended potato technologies in East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya. The study revealed that majority of farmers adopted recommended technologies like improved varieties, seed preparation, maintenance of spacing, FYM application, earthing up, weeding, planting and harvesting times. However, there was poor adoption of technologies like land preparation, quality seeds, seed tuber treatment, seed replacement rate and nutrient management. Poor adoption of these technologies may be the reason for the low potato yield in the study areas. The study also revealed that majority of farmers had a medium level of adoption. Therefore, farmers should be encouraged to adopt these technologies and extension activities like training, demonstrations, etc. should be provided to enhance their knowledge and skills.

The assessment of varietal replacement rate is as important as the adoption rate of improved varieties in estimating the performance of crop improvement programs, especially for countries approaching moderate to full adoption level. In India, more than 95 percent of the total potato area is under improved varieties. There are many studies pertaining to the extent of adoption of improved potato varieties, but there is a scarcity of studies about the varietal replacement of potato varieties in India. Thus, this study attempted to assess the varietal replacement by measuring the weighted average age of the improved varieties and also to examine the constraints for slow replacement rate and the extension strategies for improvement. The study revealed that more than 50 percent of the total supply of breeder seed by the ICAR-CPRI were varieties that were about 40-50 years old. Varieties lesser than 10 years old constituted only about 8 percent of the total supply. The weighted average age of improved varieties supplied from plains, hills and total supply was 30.18, 29.44 and 30.16 years old, respectively. This indicates that significant potato area in India is still under old varieties. The study also revealed that there are many institutional, technical and socio-economic constraints, responsible for the low varietal replacement rate in India. Extension strategies like participatory varietal development, frontline demonstrations, use of ICT tools, capacity building for farmers and other stakeholders, establishment of seed villages and encouragement of public-private partnership in the seed sector are recommended for rapid varietal replacement rate so that farmers will get the benefits offered by the new varieties.