Indigenous knowledge based abiotic indicators used in weather prediction by farmers of Wayanad, Kerala, India

Abstract

The paper presents twenty abiotic indicators used by farmers for weather prediction in Wayanad district, Kerala. These indicators were based mainly on the appearance of sky, color and patterns of cloud, moon, wind, rainbow and temperature. The popularity of these indicators among farmers was measured using use validity score (UVS) based on purpose of use, extent of use and perceived reliability. With this score, we categorized the indicators into high, medium and low popularity classes. Five indicators were assessed as high popularity, four as low popularity and the remaining, medium popularity.