No abstract

The study was conducted in horticulture zone Tangmarg of district Baramulla of Jammu and Kashmir. Horticulture Zone Tangmarg comprises of 65 villages out of which 35 villages were under cherry cultivation, from 35 villages 06 villages were selected purposively on the basis of maximum area under cherry cultivation. From the selected 06 villages 120 cherry growers were selected through proportionate allocation method. It has been observed that the skills of cherry growers regarding expert guidance planning, layout planning, soil testing pest and disease management, nutritional management training and pruning etc. were low and as such majority (46.67%) of the cherry growers have high training needs. Integrated disease management receiving highest score was the most prioritized thematic area for training need followed by Soil testing, training and pruning techniques, integrated pest management etc. The training need for marketing technique, processing and value addition packing and grading was given lowest priority by the cherry growers. It was concluded that need based cost effective training programmes and strategies need to be tailored, so that human resource be put to effective use for achieving sustainable cherry production.

Present study is based on the data collected from horticulture zone Tangmarg of district Baramulla of Jammu and Kashmir (UT), which consists of 35 fruit growing villages out of which 06 villages were selected purposively having maximum area under cherry fruit cultivation. A proportionate allocation approach was used to pick 120 cherry growers from the 06 villages that were chosen. The study shows that majority (46.66%) of the cherry growers were having medium level of knowledge regarding various cherry cultivation practices. It was also found that most (50%) of the cherry growers had low skills, 43.33 per cent of the cherry growers were having medium skills and very less percentage (6.66%) of the cherry growers had high skills of cherry cultivation. It was observed that majority of the cherry growers had not taken any expert guidance regarding various operations necessary for cherry cultivation. So it is categorical that cherry growers were not cultivating cherry as per the recommended package of practices of cherry. As a result, demand-based, cost-effective training programmes and methods must be tailored to ensure that human resources are put to the best possible use in order to achieve long-term cherry production.