FARMER’S PERCEPTION ON MANDARIN (CITRUS RETICULATA BLANCO) DISEASE IN GORKHA, NEPAL

Abstract

A study was carried out to examine the Farmer’s perception on mandarin disease in Gorkha district of Nepal to assess mandarin growing farmers’ knowledge towards mandarin attacking diseases and their prevailing management practices. Purposive random sampling techniques was used to select the household and interview with the semi-structured questionnaire was carried out Primary data were collected by the use of pre-tested questionnaire from 120 respondents selected to represent citrus growing farmers in Gorkha, Nepal. The data were processed and analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics through MS-excel and SPSS. The study revealed that majority of farmers had basic knowledge about mandarin attacking diseases and their major source of information was training. The major diseases ranked by the farmers were die-back (index 0.852), citrus greening (index 0.760), powdery mildew (index 0.730), root rot (index 0.670) sooty mold (index 0.440), pink disease (index 0.377), gummosis (index 0.335) and scab disease (index 0.330). On an average farmer had knowledge score of 1.53 and could name 2.17 diseases. The major expectations of the farmers from government for disease management were monitoring of orchard by specialists and recommendations for disease management (index 0.87 followed by providing healthy planting materials (index 0.65). Majority of the farmers adopted training pruning, application of Bordeaux mixture and paste (58.3%), weed control measures, intercropping, tillage and mulching (5%).