Adoption behaviour of farmers regarding im-proved groundnut cultivation practices in sub -humid southern plain and Aravali Hills zone of Rajasthan

Groundnut is annually grown mainly in 11 different states of the country in an area of 7.6 million hectares, with a production of 7.8 million tones of pods. Rajasthan is one of the major groundnut producing states of the country. Groundnut is the principal oilseed crops of the kharif season of the state. Agro-climatic zone IV a (Sub-humid Southern Plain and Aravali Hills) is major groundnut producing zone of the state. The productivity of this crop is very low in this agro-climatic zone as compared to the state average productivity because there is wide gap between the technology available at the research station and its adoption at the farmers’ level. Considering this view in mind, the present study was conducted in agro-climatic zone IVa of Rajasthan. The study revealed that 45.41, 27.50 and 27.09 per cent farmers were reported from the medium, low and high adoption level group respectively and large farmers had more adoption level than small and marginal farmers. It was further observed that the maximum extent of adoption was reported in soil and field preparation practice, like time of sowing, fertilizer application, earthing, recommended seed rate and spacing, water management and seed treatment with the extent of adoption was 68.61, 65.66, 60.62, 60.56, 54.99, 58.85 and 45.40 MPS respectively. Whereas, higher adoption gap exists among the farmers about high yielding varieties, soil treatment, weed management and plant protection measures and there was a significant variation among all the three categories of respondents with regard to adoption of improved groundnut cultivation practices.