Climate Variability in Castor crop- a farmers perspective

The present study entitled 'A Study on farmers adaptability to climate variability in Mahaboobnagar district of Andhra Pradesh' had been initiated focusing on the adaptability of castor growing farmers to climate variability Majority of the castor growing farmers had high level of awareness, low extent of preparedness and low adoption of practices to overcome the effects of climate variability in castor. Indigenous practices followed by the castor growers to face climate variability were sip irrigation method, increasing space (2m×90cm) under irrigated condition in rabi season, reducing space (60×15cm) under late sown conditions, collecting the seeds from female flower of castor plant for multiplication and for the usage to get more female flower plants subsequently in the next season and spaying the Bavistin @ 1g/1l fungicide along with 20 kg urea +10 kg MOP for an acre during the period of raining to minimize the incidence of botrytis disease.Suitable strategy was developed to enhance the adaptability to face the climate variability in castor. The strategy includes the interventions to be taken up by the research system, extension system, at government level and individual level