Extent of Adoption of Recommended Practices of Cotton Cultivation by the Farmers

An attempt was made to assess the adoption behaviour of the cotton growers about the recommended practices and in-situ incorporation of cotton stalks by the respondent farmers. The study was conducted in four villages of Sadashivpet mandal of Medak district of Telangana purposively and a total of 120 farmers at the rate of 30 from each village were selected by following the simple random sampling technique. An interview schedule was prepared for collection data pertaining to the adoption of recommended practices and in-situ incorporation of stalks by the respondents. From the study, it could be concluded that, with respect to the adoption, majority of the farmers (70.00%) fell under medium category of adoption followed by low (17.50%) and high (12.50%) categories. With regard to the practice wise adoption, seeds and sowing, plant protection measures, land preparation and inter cultivation operations were adopted by more than eighty percent of the respondents. Among the socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents except age all other factors posed significant positive association with the extent of adoption of the recommended practices of cotton. The study also revealed that, only 35.83 per cent of the farmers were aware about the in-situ incorporation of cotton stalks in to the soil and cent percent of the farmers were aware of using the stalks as fuel/fire wood for cooking purpose.