A study on the knowledge, adoption and constraints of the farmers about recommended technologies of sugarcane cultivation

The study was conducted in Madhanur and Gudiyathem blocks of Vellore district in Tamil Nadu to find out the knowledge, adoption of advanced cultivation technologies and constraints faced by the sugarcane growers. The data were collected from 150 respondents through an interview schedule. Nearly half of the respondents (48.00%) possessed medium level of knowledge on sugarcane cultivation technologies; majority of the farmers had adopted the recommended varieties and weedicide use (92.00% each) followed by planting time (88.00%), earthing up operation (83.33%), method of planting (81.33%), fertilizer application (NPK) (81.33%), seed rate/plant population (76.62%) and spacing (62.67%). No farmer adopted intercropping and internode borer management using Trichogramma whereas majority (69.33%) did not adopt woolly aphid management. Most of the respondents were not aware of the SSI method of sugarcane cultivation. All of them expressed the non-availability of labour as the major constraint followed by high cost of labour (90.00%) and fertilizers (82.00%).