Determination of Approaches of the Stone Fruit Producers to the Phytopathological Problems of Uşak Province

The purpose of this study is to determine the phytopathological problems of stone fruit (mostly cherry, sour cherry) producers, producers’s tendencies in the use of pesticides and their relations with the environments in Usak province. The research field is composed of Usak city center, Sivasli, Banaz and Esme district centers, villages and neighborhoods connected to them. The data used in this study have been obtained from 100 stone fruit producers through face-to-face survey method. The survey data include 2019 production season. 33 questions were asked to 100 producers randomly selected from the places where production is intense on farmers register system and the answers were evaluated. Study results reveal that people decide on applying pesticides based their own knowledge. 39% of the producers in the study is primary school graduate, 47% of them has been cultivating more than 31 years, %40 of them has been cultivating on 1-10 decares of area. In addition, 69% of the producers are engaged with cherry cultivation. 58% of the producers engage with intermediate agriculture and they cultiviate tomatoes, peppers and aubergines most. 54% of the producers applies pesticides regularly. The producer who takes courses on plant protection products does not exceed 8%. Although there is a perception that use of pesticide pollutes the environment, producers who find the agricultural struggle more important constitute 45%. Chi-square analysis was implemented in the study in order to identify the statistical relationship between the answers of producers to the questions and the established groups. Accordingly, while the producers’ use of pesticides when they see a disease, pest and weed is the dependent variable, their socio-demographic structure, agricultural production and pesticide use characteristics are the independent variables and the possible statistical relationship between these groups was tested by chi-square analysis.