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Selection of an appropriate wheat-sowing technology in the combine harvested paddy fields is essential for the timely sowing of wheat after harvesting paddy. The importance of parameters that affect farmers' decisions in selection of wheat sowing technology (WST) in the combine harvested paddy fields is assessed in the present work by implementing an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) technique. AHP is the most comprehensive approach for making judgements with many criteria since it supports a hierarchical structure and quantitative and qualitative features. The suitability of four most commonly used wheat sowing technologies, namely, happy seeder (T1), super seeder (T2), smart seeder (T3) and roto seeder (T4), was assessed based on the importance given to six criteria, namely, ease of use (C1), machine capital cost (C2), fuel consumption (C3), machine field capacity (C4), crop yield (C5), and crop germination (C6). Based on farmers’ perceptions and using the analytical hierarchy process approach, criteria C5 was assigned a maximum criteria priority weights of 3.21 and 3.87 for selection of T1 and T2, respectively; while criteria C6 was assigned a maximum criteria priority weights of 3.56 and 3.63 for selection of T3 and T4, respectively. The results showed that farmers were less concerned with machine field capacity and more focused on crop output (yield) while selecting a wheat sowing technology. Besides crop yield, crop germination and ease of use were other important factors that farmers considered highly while prioritising and selecting a wheat sowing technology for a combine harvested paddy field.
Nagpal et al. (Sat,) studied this question.