العوامل المؤثرة في مستوى معارف مزارعي الكرمة في محافظة السويداء (سورية)‎ حول حشرة الفيلوكسيرا

Abstract EN

The Sudy was conducted in 2013 in Sweida Governorate (Syria) in the moS important locations of grape farming, which were exposed to Phylloxera (Phylloxera vitifoliae) infection through a simple random sample consisting of 100 farmers whose vineyards were infected with phylloxera and other 100 ones who had no infection.

The sample was di^ributed on targeted villages according to the relative importance of the number of farmers in each village, hence the size of the sample was 200 farmers.

The research aimed to estimate the level of farmer's knowledge of phylloxera and how to manage this peS, and to find the relationship between the socio-economic factors and the level of knowledge.

The results showed that most of the vineyards’ farmers had a medium level of knowledge about phylloxera insect and controlling methods.

However, the level of knowledge was low for the part of farmers who had no infections.

The results also showed that the communication with the agricultural extension, the farmer education level, the percentage of the infected fields with Phylloxera in the village, the farmers experience in agriculture, the knowledge about phylloxera spread in the village, and the exigence of infected fields around were considered the moS factors affecting farmer’s knowledge of Phylloxera.

These factors interpret about 62% of the entire variation.

Results also showed also that farmers got about a quarter of their income from grape farming, and the majority of them belonged to the age group of 44 to 70 years old.

The average of agricultural experience was similar in both two groups of farmers with infected vineyards and those with healthy vineyards (reaching 30 years and 29 years respectively), while for the level of education, moS of farmers got their secondary education and below, whether they had or had not infected areas.

Conclusion: Finally, we can summarize that farmers’ knowledge about Phylloxera insect Sill limited and insufficient.

Therefore, it should be improved by extension activities, publications, and farmers’ education development.

Keywords: Grape, Phylloxera, Knowledge level.