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Bagher Hoseinpour; Anahita Jabbari; Hassan Alipour
Abstract
The current study aimed to identify and analyze the factors influencing acceptance or rejection of irrigation system in apple orchards of Urmia city, as the center of apple production in West Azerbaijan Province, by applying survey research method and Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations Model. Based ...
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The current study aimed to identify and analyze the factors influencing acceptance or rejection of irrigation system in apple orchards of Urmia city, as the center of apple production in West Azerbaijan Province, by applying survey research method and Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations Model. Based on the results, 57% of the respondents believed that implementation of drip irrigation using a common source of water (well) had many problems, 63% of them also considered the system unsuitable for old orchards. About 64% of the respondents believed that, in current situation, the relative profitability of the system was in the range of medium to low. 77% believed that drip irrigation systems did not have high performance due to various reasons. According to 81.5% of the respondent’s opinion, applicability of these systems is complex compared to traditional methods, because of design, performance, employment, and administrative bureaucracy, obtaining facilities, repair and maintenance. According to the Cox-Nell and Nagelkerke statistics, the variables included in the model are able to explain, respectively, 0.50 and 0.68 of the variance of the drip irrigation acceptance variable. According to the obtained results, the most important recommendations applicable in the region, are using successful models and reference groups to provide practical trainings on irrigation systems, increasing the relative benefit and reducing the risk of investing in drip irrigation, reviewing the process of designing, implementing, the workflow and the quality of equipment in drip irrigation systems, solving problems related to issuing the necessary permits for orchards that do not have ownership documents and, finally, avoiding the use of drip irrigation in old traditional orchards.