Farmers’ Knowledge of Using Plant Growth Regulators in Vegetable Production

PGRs regulates the physiological process of the crop plants like rooting, flowering, growth, sprouting, ripening, and the use of PGRs in vegetable production is found to be beneficial for yield and yield contributing characteristics of various vegetable crops. The main objectives of the present study were to determine farmers’ knowledge of using plant growth regulators (PGRs) in vegetable production and to assess its relationships with farmers’ selected socio-economic characteristics. Attempts were also made to assess the problems confronted by farmers in using PGRs. The study was conducted in two unions namely Chehelgaji and Fazilpur under Sadar upazila of Dinajpur district. One hundred one (101) farmers were interviewed using an interview schedule from 2 to 25 March 2020. To measure the farmers’ knowledge of using PGRs, six levels of knowledge were considered following Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive domain. The finding of the study revealed that the majority (91.1 percent) of the farmers had “moderate knowledge†, 5.9 percent had “inadequate knowledge†and only 3.0 percent had “adequate knowledge†of using PGRs. Moreover, the knowledge level of the farmers followed the hierarchical pyramid of Bloom’s taxonomy of the cognitive domain. Among the ten selected characteristics of the farmers, age, vegetable farming experience, and problem confrontation showed negative significant relationships, while extension media contact showed a positive significant relationship with the knowledge of using PGRs. The top-ranked problem confronted by the farmers in using PGRs was ‘poor knowledge about the proper application procedures of PGRs’ (PCI=257). Different agricultural extension service providers should take necessary strategies for the development of the knowledge of the farmers in using PGRs.