Farmers’ Knowledge Towards Aerobic Rice Cultivation in Muktsar District of Punjab

In Punjab rice is cultivated mainly through transplanting method which is more laborious, time consuming and water demanding. Aerobic rice is becoming popular among the farmers to overcome these problems and Muktsar district has adopted maximum area under this technology in the state. Therefore a study was conducted to assess the knowledge of farmers regarding agronomic practices of aerobic rice cultivation covering four villages viz Chattiana, Guri sangar, Dhulkot and Kauni of selected district. A sample of 30 farmers was selected in each village by using random sampling technique. Therefore the total samples size for study was 120 farmers. A knowledge test was developed with 11 items related to different agronomic practices of aerobic rice cultivation. One score was given to correct answer and zero score was assigned to incorrect answer. Majority of the farmers had medium level of knowledge. So, more training programmes should be organized to increase knowledge level of farmers regarding aerobic rice cultivation which will help to make a change in present traditional rice cultivation practices. The tvalue of correlation coefficient indicated that education, operational land holding, annual income, innovativeness and risk taking capacity characteristics of the farmers were positive significantly correlated with their knowledge level regarding aerobic rice cultivation