Training needs assessment of wheat growers for quality seed production: a case study of district Narowal

Abstract

Seed has matchless position among various agricultural inputs as the efficiency of all other inputs mainly depends on the production prospective of seed. The sustainability of any crop depends upon seed quality. Wheat being the staple food, occupies a significant position in agriculture of Pakistan. Wheat growers deserve special attention in terms of their training in quality seed production because seed is the most important farm input. As most of the farmers of the country are illiterate and have limited access to quality wheat seed. Specific needs are to be identified before any kind of training is given to the farmers in terms of quality seed production. For this purpose, the present study was conducted in district Narowal of the Punjab province. A multistage random sampling technique was used for the selection of study sample. For this purpose one markaz from each of the three tehsils was selected at random. From each markaz, 3 union councils were selected randomly and 2 villages from each selected union council were chosen at random. Twenty respondents (wheat growers) from each village were selected randomly, thus making a sample size of 360 respondents. The data were collected through a reliable and validated interview schedule and was analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS).Analysis of the data show that majority of the respondents belonged to middle aged category, was illiterate and operating land holding of 5-10 acres of land. A large majority of the farmers were owner cultivators and was not dependent on agriculture only as their source of income. A large majority of the respondents had no knowledge about the class of seed they used for seed production as well as had no idea whether or not they had used the approved variety for seed production. An overwhelming majority of the respondents had no knowledge about seed germination percentage and about good and contamination free seed. A large majority of the respondents did not use quality seed for wheat seed production and used their own seed source for seed. A vast majority of the respondents had very low level of knowledge with respect to seed germination line spacing, seed depth, isolation distance and seed grading. Similarly more or less than half of the respondents had very low level with respect to purity of seed, seed treatment, roughing, insect/pests control and use of farm machinery.The practices such as; source of quality seed, purity of seed, insect/pest control, seed germination, line spacing, seed depth, isolation distance, seed grading, roughing, use of farm machinery, harvesting and threshing of seed crop needed medium to high level of training, while seedbed preparation, selection of land, seed rate, sowing method, weed management and storage of seed required low to medium level of training. The fertilizer application required medium to high level of training and irrigation for seed crop required low to medium level of training. The chi-square values show a highly significant assosiation between age, education, size of land holding, area under wheat crop and use of approved variety for seed production. The gamma value shows a negative trend with regard to age while, the Gamma value with respect to education, size of land holding, area under wheat crop show a positive trend. The Chi- square values for association between independent variable (age, education, size of land holding, area under wheat cultivation, existing knowledge regarding quality wheat seed production, existing knowledge about fertilizer application and existing knowledge about application of irrigation) and dependent variable (training needs for quality seed production) show a highly significant relationship. The Gamma values (-ve) of education, size of land holding, area under wheat cultivation, existing knowledge regarding quality wheat seed production, existing knowledge about fertilizer application and existing knowledge about application of irrigation water show that the relationship was inversely proportional,while the Gamma value (+ve) of age show that the relationship was directly proportional.