Author(s):

Mouneshwari R Kammar, Arjun Sulagitti, Mahesh Kadagi and AP Biradar

Abstract: Hydroponics is gaining importance because of shrinking land size and increasing population. Hydroponics involves production of fodder without soil in a confined environment and is harvested at a very short period of time. Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Bagalkot has started its journey in the production of hydroponics in the year 2015-16. There after many farmers adopted this technology as an alternate to fresh fodder cultivation. In this paper, we have tried to explain the pros and cons of the hydroponics technology. Though there is a vigor in adoption of this technology, few farmers who have been practicing this technology since at least last two years were purposively selected as sample using purposive sampling method. Thus there were only 15 farmers selected purposively. Data was collected using self-structured interview schedule on their visit to KVK and analysed using simple frequencies and percentage. Majority of the farmers adopted a 72 trays model which produced on an average 4.5 fresh fodder from 500 g maize grains per tray. The daily fresh fodder production was 45 kg per day/ unit. The qualitative data was obtained from the observation of the hydroponic unit maintained at KVK Bagalkot. The results implied that, maize is the best source for producing fodder under hydroponics, the system of hydroponics can be prepared using low cost material, no soil media is used and no nutrients are added to the water used for hydroponics production. But, in rural areas, where the timer facility is not used, it was difficult to get the uniform growth of fodder. There was an incidence of not getting proper germination where the grains were infested.

Pages: 1033-1035  |  1449 Views  549 Downloads

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