Agriculture Update

Manoj R. Mane ¹, Nilesh P. Tayade ¹, Mahesh M. Kadam ²

Affiliations
1 Shramshakti College of Agriculture (M.P.K.V.), Maldad, Sangmaner (M.S.), IN
2 School of Agriculture, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara (Punjab), IN

Abstract

Horticulture sector covering only 8.00 per cent of total cropped area in the country and it contributes 24.50 per cent to G.D.P. and 54.55 per cent to export earning in agriculture sector. Potato is an important vegetable crop of the Sabarkantha district of the Gujarat state occupying about 18.46 per cent of total potato cropped area of the state. It ranks second in area and production of potato after Banaskantha district. While it ranks fourth with average productivity 31.04 MT/ha after Gandhinagar (33.75 MT/ha), Anand (32.00 MT/ha) and Banaskantha (31.05 MT/ha). The specific objectives studied were, to study the personal, socio-economic, situational and psychological characteristics of the potato growers, to find out knowledge level of the potato growers about potato production technology, to find out the extent of adoption of potato production technology by the potato growers. The results revealed that majority (56.67 %) of the potato growers were found in the middle age group and majority (35.83%) of the potato growers were educated upto high secondary level. Nearly half (54.17%) of the respondents belonged to medium size of family, majority (60.83%) of the potato growers had membership in one organization, more than two-fifths (42.50 %) of the potato growers were semi-medium farmers having 2.01 to 4.0 ha of land, majority (67.50 %) of the potato growers were found with medium annual income and majority (71.67%) of the potato growers fell in medium category of the extension participation. Three-fifths (61.67%) of the potato growers had adopted drip as a method of irrigation and majority (63.33%) of the farmers had adopted groundnut-potato-fodder sorghum potato based cropping pattern, more than three-fourths (75.83%) of the potato growers had medium innovative proneness and nearly three- fifths (60.00%) of the potato growers had medium risk orientation. A great majority (61.67%) of the potato growers had medium level of knowledge regarding recommended practices of potato. The findings regards to the practice-wise knowledge of the respondents about recommended potato production technology are presented. It reveals that 'sowing time and method' and 'irrigation management' were the most important practices of potato cultivation and found having maximum mean knowledge score (93.33 mean score each). Majority (70.83 %) of the respondents had medium extent of adoption of recommended production technology of potato. The practice-wise adoptions of recommended production technology of potato concluded that among the different recommended potato production technologies, (86.57mean score) of the respondents had adopted irrigation management technology.

Keywords

Adoption, Production Technology, Potato Growers.

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Manoj R. Mane ¹, Nilesh P. Tayade ¹, Mahesh M. Kadam ²

Affiliations
1 Shramshakti College of Agriculture (M.P.K.V.), Maldad, Sangmaner (M.S.), IN
2 School of Agriculture, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara (Punjab), IN

Abstract

Potato is an important vegetable crop of the Sabarkantha district of the Gujarat state occupying about 18.46 per cent of total potato cropped area of the state. It ranks second in area and production of potato after Banaskantha district. While it ranks fourth with average productivity 31.04 MT/ha after Gandhinagar (33.75 MT/ha), Anand (32.00 MT/ha) and Banaskantha (31.05 MT/ha).The following objectives were studied that are to find out the extent of adoption of potato production technology by the potato growers and to know the marketing management by the potato growers, to ascertain the association between the extent of adoption of recommended potato production technology by the potato growers and their selected characteristics.The following conclusions were, A great majority (61.67%) of the potato growers had medium level of knowledge regarding recommended practices of potato. The findings regards to the practice-wise knowledge of the respondents about recommended potato production technology are presented. It reveals that 'sowing time and method' and 'irrigation management' were the most important practices of potato cultivation and found having maximum mean knowledge score (93.33 mean score each).Majority (70.83 %) of the respondents had medium extent of adoption of recommended production technology of potato. The practice-wise adoptions of recommended production technology of potato concluded that among the different recommended potato production technologies, (86.57 mean score) of the respondents had adopted irrigation management technology.Majority (70.83%) of the respondents had medium marketing management by the farmers. The data about various aspect of marketing management concluded that it was portray that majority respondent (48.33%) were selling their produce through the commission agent, while 30.83 per cent of the respondents selling their produced to the wholesaler in the market yard. Further, it was found that 51.66 per cent of the respondents sold their produce when the prices are favorable, while 30.83 per cent of the respondents sold their produce immediately after the harvest. In case of grading it was found that 60.00 per cent of the respondents followed grading on the basis of the size of potato and 40.00 per cent of the respondents followed grading on the basis of quality of potato. The responses regarding storage facility revealed that 43.33 per cent of the respondents stored the potato in gunny bags, followed cold storage 40.84 per cent. The independent variables like age, education, annual income, extension participation, method of irrigation, innovative proneness, risk orientation and level of knowledge had positive and significant correlation with adoption of recommended crop production technology by farmers. While, the variables like size of family, social participation, land holding and cropping pattern had positive and non- significant relationship with adoption of recommended crop production technology by the farmers.

Keywords

Adoption, Production Technology, Potato Growers.

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