Vol. 7, Issue 2 (2019)
Knowledge of sericulture extension workers about soil health cards
Author(s): Gulzar Ahmad Khan, Haroon Rashid Ahmad, Muttanna and MK Ghosh
Abstract: Imbalanced application of chemical fertilizers is widely blamed for poor soil fertility status in India. To address the issue Government of India has come up with initiatives to inculcate among the farmers judicious use of manures, organic and inorganic fertilizers based on the soil health status. One of the recent initiatives has been Soil Health Cards scheme. A soil health card is a single page document which along with farmers basic information, contains nutrient status, physical and chemical properties along with recommendations for integrated nutrient management. The study reported here was to determine the knowledge level of sericulture extension workers (Mulberry man, nursery man, watcher) regarding soil health cards, so that the effectiveness of training programmes provided by CSR&TI Pampore to sericulture workers could be improved. Forty sericulture extension workers of sericulture development department, Kashmir were selected purposively. A schedule comprising of twenty four questions was administered to determine the knowledge of the extension workers regarding soil health cards. The results revealed that knowledge regarding how to take soil samples (78%), the precautions to be taken while taking soil samples (70%), availability of SHC details on the SHC portal (68%), information required to open the soil health details on web portal (60%), macro nutrient status display Nitrogen (68%), Phosphorus (68%), Potassium (63%) on soil health was responded positively by majority of the respondents. The knowledge regarding cost of soil sample (0%), year of launching of the scheme (25%) the state where it was launched first (10%), micro nutrients status of soil, soil physical and chemical properties (50%), calculation of fertilizer dose for mulberry based on SHC report (38%) was very less among the respondents. From these results it can be inferred that sericulture extension workers have good knowledge about soil sampling, sampling precautions, macronutrients, accessing soil health through web portal but the information regarding micronutrients, soil chemical and physical properties, calculation of fertiliser dose and other relevant parameters needs to be further upgraded by specially designed training programmes for these extension workers, so that the information contained in the cards could be delivered to the farmers field, who eventually apply these recommendations in their field. Further, importance of micronutrients along with nutrient composition of different organic manures should be included in training programmes and Soil Health Card document to inculcate the importance of these two for optimum utilization of resources by the farmers to achieve yield levels on sustainable basis.
Pages: 534-538 | 413 Views 76 Downloads
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How to cite this article:
Gulzar Ahmad Khan, Haroon Rashid Ahmad, Muttanna, MK Ghosh. Knowledge of sericulture extension workers about soil health cards. Int J Chem Stud 2019;7(2):534-538.
