Farmer's knowledge level of extension recommendations of production of tomato crop in Qena governorate, Egypt

The aims of the current research were: (1) determining farmer's knowledge level of extension recommendations for production of tomatoes crop, (2) identifying problems that face the farmers in production of tomatoes crop, (3) identifying their suggestions to overcome to these problems, (4) determining the relationship between farmer's knowledge level of extension recommendations for production of tomatoes crop and their studied characteristics. the data were collected by questionnaire forms from 210 tomato crop farmers, randomly selected from six villages in Qena governorate, Egypt. Frequencies, percentages, weighed mean, and spearman rank order correlation coefficient, were used for data presentation and analysis. Research results showed that the knowledge level of the respondents was high for four procedure of tomato production and their knowledge level was average for five agricultural operations, while their knowledge level of grass control and environmental conditions was low. The most important problems facing the respondents in tomato production were absence of the role of agricultural extension agents, lock of government services delivered to farmers, high prices of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, tomato seedlings and irrigation, deficiency of fertilizers and pesticides. The most important suggestions of the respondents to overcome the previous were problems: supporting agricultural production requirements, providing fertilizers to farmers by agricultural cooperatives at the appropriate time, surveillance on tomato seed, fertilizers, and pesticides production companies, and employment of agricultural extension agents at village level to follow up the problems of farmers. Significant positive correlation was found at 0.01 level between respondents' knowledge level of extension recommendations for production of tomato crop and their studied characteristics.