Effectiveness of a mobile-based advisory application on knowledge and plant protection practices of cotton farmers in Northern Karnataka

Introduction

Cotton cultivation accounts for nearly one-fourth of global insecticide consumption, making it one of the most chemically intensive crops in the world. The excessive and indiscriminate use of pesticides has raised major concerns related to environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, resistance development in pests, and increased health risks for farmers and rural communities. In India, especially in states like Karnataka, farmers often apply pesticides without proper guidance, leading to economic losses and ecological imbalance. State Agricultural Universities and extension agencies routinely publish Packages of Practices (PoPs) for scientific crop cultivation. However, despite their availability, farmer adherence remains limited due to poor dissemination, lack of timely advisories, and constraints in traditional extension systems. Shortage of trained field staff further restricts the reach and effectiveness of conventional advisory services. Information and Communication Technology (ICT), particularly mobile phone-based advisories, offers an efficient alternative for delivering timely and locationspecific information to farmers. Cotton in Northern Karnataka is highly vulnerable to insect pests, especially pink bollworm, which necessitates precise and timely plant protection measures. To address this gap, a Summer Cotton Pesticide Spray Mobile Application was developed to provide farmers with accurate recommendations on pest identification and pesticide spraying. The present study evaluates the effectiveness of this mobile application in enhancing farmer's knowledge and understanding of plant protection practices. www.extensionjournal.com highly vulnerable to pest outbreaks. A total of 90 farmers were purposively selected and categorized into three groups: Compliers (30) who actively used and followed the mobile advisory app; Non-compliers (30) who had access to the app but did not adhere to its recommendations; and Controllers (30) who had no access to the advisory system. This classification provided a clear framework to compare knowledge, adoption behaviour, and economic outcomes across varying levels of advisory exposure. Data were collected through personal interviews using a structured, pre-tested questionnaire that assessed farmer's knowledge of improved cultivation and plant protection practices, pest and disease identification, pesticide awareness, adoption behaviour, yield, costs, income, and issues related to advisory use. Verifiable indicators such as actual yield and market prices were incorporated to assess economic impact. Knowledge was measured using multiple-choice questions covering key areas such as improved cultivation practices, major diseases, sucking pests, bollworms, and recommended pesticides, with correct answers scored as 1 and incorrect answers as 0. Knowledge levels were classified into low, medium, and high categories based on mean ± standard deviation. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics and ANOVA (F-test), with differences significant at the 1% level considered meaningful. This analytical approach allowed for a robust comparison of knowledge variation across the three farmer groups and helped determine the influence of advisory exposure on farmer's plant protection understanding.

Results and Discussion

The results in Table 1 observed that the knowledge levels of farmers regarding improved cultivation practices, major diseases, sucking pests, bollworm complex, and pesticide identification were assessed across three groups compliers, non-compliers, and controllers to determine the influence of the advisory application on their understanding.

Improved Cultivation Practices

Compliers consistently exhibited higher knowledge scores across most cultivation parameters compared to noncompliers and controllers. A striking pattern emerged in Hybrid seed selection, choice of Bt or Non Bt hybrids, seed rate, FYM application, NPK nutrient knowledge and Intercropping where compliers recorded 66.67 per cent to 86.67 per cent awareness, substantially surpassing controllers (20.00% to 60.00%). This suggests that farmers who regularly engaged with the advisory app were better equipped with technical recommendations. Two areas showed uniformly low knowledge intercropping and hybrid seed selection, indicating that these concepts are either poorly communicated in the extension system or farmers perceive them as less relevant. The marginal difference between groups in these areas points to the need for strengthening content clarity within the app (Aker, 2011; Fafchamps and Minten, 2012; Saravanan, 2010; Jallow et al., 2017) [1,3,14,5] .

Major Diseases

Knowledge on leaf reddening and leaf spot was relatively high in all groups. However, compliers again performed better (66.67% to 73.33%) than controllers (60.00% to 66.67%). In contrast, awareness of grey mildew was extremely low across the sample, especially among noncompliers (3.33%). This suggests that the disease is either less prevalent in the area or inadequately covered in the existing advisory materials. It highlights a potential gap where disease-specific training modules could improve farmer preparedness (Hanchinal and Hosamani, 2016) [4] .

Sucking Pest Complex

The difference between compliers and the other two groups was most striking in the sucking pest category. Compliers showed significantly higher knowledge of aphids, thrips, mirid bug, red cotton bug, and midge, with awareness levels ranging from 33.33per cent to 83.33 per cent. Controllers and non-compliers had extremely low scores, such as 6.67 per cent knowledge of mirid bug and 3.33 per cent to 6.67 per cent for red cotton bug, indicating limited understanding of early-season pests. The remarkably high awareness (83.33%) of red cotton bug among compliers demonstrates the app's effectiveness in alerting farmers to economically important pests (Deviprasad et al., 2015; Mancini et al., 2007) [2,8] .

Bollworm Complex

Patterns varied across the three bollworm categories. Noncompliers showed unexpectedly higher knowledge of spotted bollworm (33.00%) and pink bollworm (67.00%) compared to controllers, possibly because these pests receive frequent attention during farmer meetings and media advisories. The Compliers showed moderate knowledge levels (16.67% to 33.33%), indicating that bollworm content within the app may require strengthening or more targeted push notifications (Yadav and Devi, 2017) [15] .

Pesticide Knowledge

Knowledge of specific pesticides revealed a different trend. Non-compliers exhibited higher awareness of several commonly used chemical pesticides such as NSKE, lambdacyhalothrin, acephate, thiodicarb, fenvalerate, cypermethrin, Thiamethoxam and Profenofos (60.00% to 83.33%). This may be due to their reliance on input dealers rather than advisory recommendations ((Mancini et al., 2007; Yadav and Devi, 2017) [8,15] . In contrast, compliers had better awareness of safer and recommended options such as NSKE (16.67%), and maintained balanced knowledge about other chemicals. This suggests that the advisory app may be influencing farmers toward eco-friendly and recommended pesticide choices rather than the dealer-driven approach seen among noncompliers (Pankaj, 2020; Peshin et al., 2009) [10,11] . Overall, the results from Table 1 shows that the compliers had the highest knowledge across most areas due to regular advisory exposure, while Non-compliers showed moderate understanding, especially of pesticides, likely influenced by dealers. Controllers consistently recorded the lowest knowledge levels. Persistent gaps in intercropping, grey mildew, and some bollworm categories highlight the need for improved and targeted advisory content. www.extensionjournal.com The findings in Table 2 reveal a clear and statistically significant variation in the knowledge levels of farmers across the three groups: Compliers, Non-compliers, and Controllers. Compliers recorded the highest mean knowledge score (66.02%), indicating stronger understanding of plant protection practices, followed by Non-compliers (42.53%), while Controllers showed the lowest score (23.05%). The significant F-value of 17.18 at the 1% level confirms that advisory adoption had a substantial impact on farmers' plant protection knowledge. This pattern suggests that farmers who regularly followed advisory recommendations were better equipped to manage pests and diseases, whereas Non-compliers had only moderate understanding and Controllers remained comparatively less informed (Aker, 2011; Fafchamps and Minten, 2012; Reddy and Rani, 2016) [1, 3, 13] . Overall, the results underscore the importance of advisorybased extension strategies in strengthening farmer's scientific knowledge and improving their decision-making in crop protection. Table 3 provides a detailed comparison of knowledge acquisition by Complier and Non-complier farmers after exposure to advisory services across various dimensions such as improved cultivation practices, major diseases, sucking pest complex, bollworm complex, and pesticide usage.

Improved Cultivation Practices

A significant proportion of Compliers showed notable gains in their knowledge of key cultivation practices, particularly regarding hybrid varieties from different companies, preference for Bt or non-Bt cotton, FYM application rates, and nutrient management (83.33%). Improvements were also observed in areas such as seed rate and intercropping (66.67%). Non-compliers, though showing progress, exhibited comparatively lower knowledge enhancement, with levels ranging from 66.67 per cent to 75.00 per cent across major parameters. Overall, these findings indicate that the advisory system was instrumental in narrowing knowledge gaps, especially among Compliers, who demonstrated consistently higher adoption and retention of the recommended practices (Saravanan, 2010; Reddy and Rani, 2016) [14,13] .

Major Diseases

Compliers demonstrated high awareness of major diseases in cotton such as leaf reddening (86.67%) and leaf spot (66.67%), while Non-compliers exhibited strong knowledge www.extensionjournal.com only in certain problems like leaf spot (86.67%) and grey mildew (66.67%). The variation reflects the differential use of information sources: Compliers benefited directly from advisory inputs, whereas Non-compliers depended more on conventional sources such as peers or dealers (Hanchinal and Hosamani, 2016) [4] .

Sucking Pest Complex

The advisory proved highly effective in boosting pest identification skills among Compliers, who achieved strong knowledge levels for major sucking pests particularly Red cotton bug (90.00%), followed by Thrips (40.00%), Aphids and Mirid bug (33.33%), and Jassids and Midge (16.67%). Non-compliers, lacking regular exposure to advisory messages, showed considerably weaker awareness across all pest categories, with some pests like Aphids and Midge (0.00%) not recognized at all. This outcome reinforces the critical influence of advisory communication in improving diagnostic skills, which form the foundation for timely and effective pest management interventions (Mancini et al., 2007; Peshin et al., 2009) [8,11] .

Bollworm Complex

Compliers showed complete knowledge regarding pink bollworm (100.00%), which is critical in cotton cultivation.

Knowledge of spotted bollworm and American bollworm was moderate among both groups. The intense advisory focus on pink bollworm in recent years likely contributed to the exceptionally high awareness among Compliers (Kranthi, 2014; Qaim and Zilberman, 2003) [6,12] .

Pesticide Knowledge

The advisory services significantly enhanced pesticide knowledge among Compliers, especially for products like Cypermethrin (83.33%), Phrofenophas (83.33%), Lambdacyhalothrin, Fenvalerate and Thiamethoxam (66.67%). Noncompliers, though equipped with moderate knowledge for some pesticides such as Thiometrioesm (73.33%), lagged behind considerably in several key inputs such as NSKE (0.00%) and Thiodicarb (0.00%).

Overall, the results from Table 3 clearly demonstrate that advisory exposure substantially improved knowledge acquisition among Compliers, making them better equipped to implement scientific plant protection measures. These findings are consistent with earlier studies such as Pankaj (2020) [10] , Yadav and Devi (2017) [15] who reported widespread gaps in farmer's understanding of pesticide selection and recommended dosages, and Devi Prasad et al.

(2015), who observed significant deficiencies in preventive pesticide use and personal protective practices. The results in the [1,9,7] . These findings emphasize that digital advisories can greatly enhance resource-use efficiency, optimize pesticide applications, and improve farm-level economic outcomes. Although the advisory was effective, farmers encountered several challenges while using the mobile application (Table 5). Nearly half of the compliers (46.67%) reported difficulty in identifying pests and diseases based on the images provided in the app. This suggests the need for clearer visuals, local-language descriptions, and step-by-step diagnostic support. About 40.00 per cent of the farmers struggled with technical terminology used in the advisory. This highlights the need for simplified language, audio instructions, and glossary features. Internet connectivity issues (33.33%) were also notable, affecting one-third of the users, especially during peak advisory periods. A considerable proportion (30.00%) reported that recommended pesticides were not always available in local markets, resulting in delayed sprays or substitution with non-recommended chemicals. Some farmers (26.67%) experienced confusion regarding pesticide dosage, indicating the need for more intuitive display formats and video demonstrations (Aker, 2011; Fafchamps and Minten, 2012; Saravanan, 2010) [1,3,14] . Overall, while the app proved highly beneficial, addressing these usability challenges will enhance its adoption, user experience, and long-term impact.

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