Integrated pest management (IPM) is essentially a knowledge-based technology which involves integration of different methods of disease and pest management and applied biological, cultural, physical and chemical practices that minimize economic, health and environmental hazards. It is effective in a variety of natural crop pests by adopting pest-resistant crops, following appropriate cultural management practices, using pesticides judiciously etc. The present study was designed to know the level of knowledge of the farmers about Integrated Pest Management practices. The study was conducted in two purposively selected villages namely Badarpur Said and Jasana of Faridabad district in Haryana State. The sample size for the present investigation was 120 (60 respondents from two villages). The findings of the study revealed that majority (60.00%) of the of the farmers had medium level of knowledge about integrated pest management practices, and comparatively, more knowledge about cultural and chemical practices in IPM strategy. The sources of information utilized by farmer for pest control were pesticide dealer in village (75%) rank I farmers own experience (10.00%) and neighbors and relatives (7.55%). The characteristics education, social participation, extension participation had positive and significant relationship with the knowledge level of farmers about IPM practices. The constraints in adoption of IPM strategy were the lack of knowledge to adopt chemical control by determining Economic Thresholds Level (ETL) was the top ranking in perceived constraints in adoption of IPM practices. The other constraints is rank order were, lack of knowledge about bio- control agents and bio-fertilizers followed by, Lack of knowledge about manual/mechanical methods, high cost and less availability of pesticides/bio-pesticides and bio-agents and lack of knowledge and skill about seedling/seed treatment, high cost of pesticides/bio-pesticides and bio-agents, and lack of knowledge about recommended dose of insecticides, fungicides.
Knowledge, Integrated pest management (IPM), Pesticide, Environmental hazards
