Betelvine plant is an important and well-familiar plant in Indian agricultural diasporas. After lunch or dinner, chewing a pan quid is a culture of many parts of our country. Hence, the plant is a culture influencing or culture forming plant. Advantages in day to day life and medicinal values have made the plant an essential plant in Indian agriculture. Other dimension of this crop is that it is an important cash crop. It is considered that amongst all cultivated crops, betelvine is the most profitable crop (per unit land production basis). The betelvine cultivation offers perennial employment and income because of its capital and labour intensive characteristics. Keeping it in mind, a study was conducted with the following objective: - to portray the pesticides’ use pattern of betelvine growers in controlling diseases was considered. The study was conducted in the state of West Bengal. Multistage random sampling technique was used for selection of the area and respondents. A sample of 100 respondents was randomly selected from the ten selected villages (10 respondents from each selected village) according to convenience. (1) The present study revealed that among the diseases, Foot rot (Phytophthora parasitica var piperina) was the most important disease (100%). Least important disease was dew or fog injury (9%), (2) Betelvine growers were using various pesticides to control diseases. (3) The doses of chemicals differed from their recommended does in some cases. (4) For newly introduced chemicals, it is seen that farmers exactly followed recommended dose. (5) Farmers mainly applied the pesticides through spraying method (100%). (6) Majority of respondents’ (55%) interval of application of pesticides was 5-7 days (7) Main source of information regarding pesticides use was agricultural input retailers (100%) (8) Farmers were not following the precaution- harvest the crop after knowing the stability of pesticides on that crop as a result residues there on betelvine leaves which will ultimately hamper the health of the consumer. Therefore, the extension agencies who are working at base level should take proper measures to promote the betelvine cultivation, especially, there is needed more awareness programmes on plant protection aspects.
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2022: 6.012
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