Knowledge extent of farmers about vegetable production technologies

Abstract

This study was undertaken on 600 respondents (vegetable producers) selected from 20 villages of Kullu and Manali block of Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh. The maximum percentages of the respondents were found having medium level of knowledge, to which the respondents were distributed accordingly to the knowledge categories viz., low, medium and high. Out of 12 agricultural practices of vegetable production, sowing time of the crops was ranked at first (95.00%) followed by distance of row to row and plant to plant (87.33%) and grading of crops (84.67%) ranked at second and third, respectively. The poor extent of knowledge was reported for the practices viz., insects-pests control (13.33%), disease control (9.67%) and storage of crops (6.83%). The overall extent of knowledge was found to be 62.47 per cent. The variables like caste, education, housing pattern, annual income, house hold materials, transportation materials, communication media possession, overall materials possession, extension contact with information sources, economic motivation, risk orientation, adoption, occupation, social participation and scientific orientation had significant and positive correlation with extent of knowledge, means that the value of these variables increases, the knowledge extent was also increased.