Farmers Perception Towards Farm University Technologies of Rice in Karnataka

The Zonal Agricultural Research Station, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangaluru, has been carryingout the research on major crops like rice (Oriza sativa L.), finger millet (Eleusine coracana), sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum), maize (Zea mays L.) etc., considering the agro-climatic, location specific and need based demands of the farmers since its inception 1930s, many good agricultural practices were developed and transferred to farmers. There was need to evaluate the performance of these technologies in farmers’ field from time to time. One such technology selected for the present study is, rice variety ‘Thanu’(KMP-101) which was released during 2003-04 and it was compared with the local prevailing check earlier variety ‘MTU- 1001’. An Ex-post-facto survey type of research design was adopted. The research objectives of the study were to find out the perception of farmers regarding performance of this rice variety in the farmers’ field regarding grain and straw yield, income generated out of it and to find out association between grain yields and social factors affecting it. The study was conducted in Mandya, Maddur and Srirangapatna taluks of Mandya district during 2009-10 and was re-tested in 2016 on pilot sample to ascertain the impact and performance of selected rice variety among the farmers. The sample size was 270 and the respondents were selected randomly and purposively from afore said taluks of Mandya district. The data were collected from the respondents by administering pre-tested, structured interview schedule. The nominal data were analyzed using Chi square test to draw the inferences. The study found that, majority of the farmers had obtained grain yield ranging from 21 to 25q/ac from ‘Thanu’ variety. However, this is lesser yield when compared to the check variety ‘MTU-1001’. The respondents obtained more income of Rs.1850/ac from ‘Thanu’ variety when compared to that of check variety ‘‘MTU-1001’’, because of better market price, fetching additional price ranging from Rs.150 to 200/q in the market for its fine grain quality and consumer preference. The selected independent variables such as family size, land holding and education level of respondents have found to have no significant association with grain yield obtained. It implies that all the 3 variables had no influence on rice yield including the education level. The literacy had not played a key role in enhancing the grain yield level. Both illiterate and literate respondents had obtained same crop yield without much difference. Further, there is a need to evolve high yielding varieties retaining the some of its beneficial attributes of variety ‘Thanu’to harness the genetic potential of the crop.