A Study on Awareness and Adoption of the Rational ITKs in Tea Crop among the Hilly Tribes

The study focused on the documentation and rationalization of Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK) practices pertinent to tea in Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu. An attempt was made to study the awareness and adoption level of the rationalized ITKs among tea growing hilly tribes. The study was conducted in two phases including documentation and rationalization and field survey. The ITK practices were documented from the tea growing from the elderly tribal farmers of Nilgiris district. They were rationalized based on the experience of 32 scientists from TNAU and KVKs of Tamil Nadu. Among the 34 total documented ITKs 26 were found to be rational. These rational ITKs were tested for the awareness and adoption level among the tea growing hilly tribes of the Konavakorai village of Kotagiri of block, Nilgiris district. The respondents were selected using simple random sampling technique and the majority of them were found to possess with medium to high level of awareness and adoption level about the ITKs in tea crop.