Awareness and Adoption of Avtar and Merger Fungicides: A Study in Tiruchirappalli and Theni Districts of Tamilnadu

Pests have been one of the major problems in crop cultivation and it was reported that pests caused about 17.1 per cent of yield loss. This necessitated the adoption of appropriate pest control measures by various Agri input firms. Indofil chemical company has launched Contact + Systemic Fungicides named AVTAR and MERGER in november,2009. Avtar had been recommended for many crops such as paddy sheath blight, paddy grain discoloration, paddy brown leaf spot and paddy leaf blast, downy mildew, banana shikatoka leaf spot, powdery mildew in grapes and tikka diseases. Merger was recommended only for paddy blast.The case firm conducted campaign program, farmers meeting and print media advertisement as the promotional measures. The awareness and adoption of these new fungicides by farmers required field level study. Hence, an attempt was made to examine the awareness and adoption of Avtar and Merger among the stakeholders and to estimate the satisfaction for the Avtar and Merger fungicides in Theni and Tiruchirapalli districts of Tamil Nadu. From this study the following findings are drawn.• Majority of the sample farmers were unaware of Avtar and Merger.