Abstract

The study assessed the adoption of early maturing maize varieties among farmers in Ido Local Government Area of Oyo State. Purposive sampling procedure and simple random sample were used to select the wards and sample size of 99 respondents. A well-structured questionnaire with interview section was used to obtain data from the respondents. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used for analyses of data. Findings showed that 59.6% of the respondents were male. 50.50% of respondents were within the ages of 36-45 years. Majority of them were involved in farming (69.7%) as major occupation. The findings also showed high rate of adoption rate (69.7%) of early maturity within 80-85 days. The study also revealed that (74.7%) of the respondent stated that weather condition was a factor that influence the level of adoption of early maturing maize varieties with the major constraint being inadequate availability of improved early maturing maize seeds. The chi square analysis showed that there was significant association between and adoption of improved maize varieties with age (χ² =16.076, p<0.05) and sex (χ² =6.738 p<0.05). The study therefore, concluded that adoption of early maturing maize varieties in the study area was mostly done by males within the youthful age bracket. Also, the most adopted varieties were EV 99 DTWSTR and EV 99 DTWSTR. It is therefore recommended that farm size available to maize farmers should be increased through lease by the Government or other organizations. Also seed production outlets should be made available near communities to facilitate and promote cultivation of improved early maturing maize varieties by farmers.

Key Words: Adoption, Early maturing, Maize varieties, Farmers