Farmers’ Perception of Fertilizer Management Practices for Cotton Production in Magway Region of Myanmar

Abstract

Cotton production is one of the main agricultural activities in the dry zone of Myanmar. Understanding the farmers’ fertilizer management practices for cotton production was important to develop appropriate technology in order to increase cotton yield and quality. The main objective of the study was to evaluate the farmers’ fertilizer management practices on cotton production in Magway Region. The survey was conducted in eight villages from four districts; Magway, Minbu, Pakokku and Thayet during May to June 2017. Totally 160 famers from survey region were chosen by simple random sampling method and individually interviewed with structured questionnaires. Data were analyzed by using descriptive methods. Most of the farmers generally applied the urea fertilizer (65.6%), NPK-compound fertilizer (93.13%) and foliar fertilizers (82%) as well as farmyard manure (97.5%) in this study area. Most of the farmers interested combine application of compound and foliar fertilizer more than single nutrient fertilizer application. According to the results from the study, the cotton yields were directly related with fertilizer application practices. So, lower crop yield and less profit in cotton production were found due to inadequate amount of fertilizer applied by respondent farmers. Farmers were needed to improve the perception of fertilizer management practices in cotton production for increasing crop yield and household incomes. Farmers’ agricultural knowledge is an immensely valuable resource that provides farmer-to-farmer training or local technology transfer. Therefore, the extension stuffs should be upgraded the awareness of farmers for increasing seed cotton yield and agricultural knowledge on cotton production.