Horticulture crops form an indispensable portion of Indian agricultural production. India is the second major producer of the vegetables and fruits in the world. In Punjab state 2.77 lakh hectares area under horticultural crops with an annual production of 51.74 lakh tones and huge production of Kinnow observed as compare to other citrus crops due to the sandy loam soil and agro climatic condition. Based on the regional natural citrus growing conditions the Punjab Government has established five Citrus Estates to promote this crop and to give knowledge to the farmers about most up-to-date techniques of citrus planting, management, harvesting and marketing of this crop. To select the area and respondent beneficiaries, a stratified multistage random sampling design was used and 200 beneficiaries were selected from five citrus estates societies in three selected districts of Punjab. This study revealed that majority of the respondent beneficiaries (83.0%) had medium to high level of adoption of recommended citrus production practices while only 17.0 per cent had low adoption. It was also clear from the findings that the respondent beneficiaries had maximum adoption about citrus plantation and plantation category got first rank among 14 different aspects of citrus production practices followed by harvesting and soil preparation, which was placed at second and third position in rank hierarchy while fruit drop & growth regulators category got last fourteenth rank.
Adoption, beneficiaries, citrus estates, growth regulators, kinnow
