factors influencing the application of waste management operations in apple production in abhar county

the main objective of this descriptive-survey research was to investigate the application of waste management operations in apple production in abhar county. the statistical population of the study consisted of 12971 apple growers of the two districts of markazi and soltanieh out of which 100 people were selected as sample using cochran formula. stratified proportionate random sampling technique was used for the study. a questionnaire was developed to collect the data. validity of the research’s tool was approved by some of the faculty members of the department of agricultural extension and education in the university of tehran as well as some local experts working on the area of apple gardening. the reliability of the main scales of the questionnaire was examined by cronbach alpha coefficients ranged from 0.96-0.97. the data were analyzed by spss software. according to the findings, there were positive significant relationships between application of waste management operations in apple gardens with educational level and farming experience of farmers at one percent level. in addition, there were significant negative relationships between application of waste management operations in apple gardens with the farmer’s age, garden size, extent of production, volume of supply, total waste, the garden’s age, inter-cultivation waste, harvesting waste and post-harvesting waste at one percent level. the step-wise regression analysis indicated that four variables viz., the farmer’s age, farmer’s knowledge about waste management in apple gardens, the garden’s age and the garden’s size explained 80.2 percent of variations of the extent of applying waste management operations in apple gardens.