ABSTRACT

The study was conducted in Dharwad and Gadag districts of North Karnataka during 2023-24 with the sample size of 120 chrysanthemum growers. The “Ex-post facto” research design was employed for the study. The data was elicited through personal interview method.
The findings revealed that, 42.50 per cent of chrysanthemum growers belonged to middle age group, 27.50 per cent of them were educated up to high school, 33.34 per cent of them were marginal farmers and majority (79.17 %) of them belonged to medium family size, About 40.00 per cent of them belonged to medium annual income category, majority (65.83 %) of them had less than 1.5 acres of area under chrysanthemum cultivation, 45.00 per cent belonged to low extension contact, 42.50 per cent had low extension participation, 45.84 per cent had medium level mass media exposure, 36.67 per cent had medium economic motivation and 46.67 per cent had medium risk orientation. About 45.00 per cent of them belonged to medium knowledge category and 40.83 per cent of them belonged to medium adoption category about chrysanthemum production technologies.
Correlation analysis highlighted that education, annual income, extension contact, extension participation, mass media exposure, economic motivation and risk orientation had a positive and significant relationship with the knowledge of recommended production technologies among chrysanthemum growers. Adoption was positively and significantly related to education, extension contact, extension participation, mass media exposure, economic motivation and risk orientation. Majority of the chrysanthemum growers had linkage with fellow farmers and commission agents for both harvesting and marketing.
Large majority (80.83 %) of chrysanthemum growers faced constraints like, fluctuation in market prices, followed by high incidence of pest and disease (77.50 %), high cost of inputs (72.50 %) and exploitation by middleman (60.83%). Majority (54.16%) of farmers suggested removal of middle man and commission agents in local markets.