Pesticide application behaviour of farmers in vegetable production

The present study wasconducted to examine the pesticide application behaviour of farmers with respect to vegetable production in Bundi district of Rajasthan in India. A total of 250 farmers were selected as respondents through three stage sampling procedure. The selected respondents were interviewed personally using pre-tested well structured interview schedule. Results showed that almost all the farmers depended on chemical pesticides for the management of pests. The respondent farmers were using a variety of pesticide formulations. Among them, the most frequently used were insecticides, followed by fungicides, acaricides, nematicides and bactericides. It was observed that majority of farmers had low to medium knowledge on various aspects of pesticides use. Most of the farmers were relying mostly on input dealers andneighbours and fellow farmers for information.