ADOPTION AND CONSTRAINTS OF CROP CULTIVATION TECHNOLOGIES IN MAIZE BY TRIBAL FARMERS IN ALLURI SITHARAMA RAJU DISTRICT, ANDHRA PRADESHKADIRI MOHANAbstract An explorative research study was conducted in agency mandals of ASR district, Andhra Pradesh during the year 2021-22 through survey in selected villages. Among the 10 tribal agency mandals of ASR district comprising of 6962 ha (DHB, 2020) area of maize, two mandals viz., Chintapalli and Guden Kothaveedi had documented more than 50 per cent of districts maize cultivation with 3379 ha area. Hence, the present study was executed in above two mandals only and from each mandal, two villages were opted and from each opted village 15 farmers were randomly selected, so a total of 60 tribal farmers were chosen for recording their responses through personal interview. The results inferred that among all the schedules, majority farmers had adopted the practice of sowing the maize crop in time (68.33%) with recommended seed rate (71.67 %) following thinning operations (96.67 %) and adopting inter cropping system (68.33%) many farmers had not adopted the recommended practices like seed selection, application of FYM, ridges and furrows making, adopting spacing, seed treatment, application of recommended NPK fertilizers, weed control, inter-cultivation, irrigation at critical stage, pest and disease management and drying the harvested cobs with 65.00, 70.00, 86.67, 63.33, 80.00, 98.33, 75.00, 83.33, 76.67, 86.67 and 80.00 per cent responses, respectively. The major constraints include low market facilities intended with low price for sale, incidence of fall army worm and low yields. Through training programmes, method and result demonstrations information on water, weed, pest and disease management in maize crop are to be disseminated to the tribal farmers. |