Narail wheat farmers expect bumper production

NARAIL, Mar 21 (BSS): Farmers and agriculturists are expecting a bumper wheat production in three upazilas of the district during the current season with a production target of 12,956 tonnes of wheat.

A total of 4,049 hectares of land have been brought under the wheat cultivation in the area, the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) officials in the district on Wednesday.

Deputy director (DD) Chinmoy Roy said bumper wheat production is expected due to favourable climate condition, adequate supply of necessary seeds, fertilisers and pesticides in the district. Different banks have already disbursed crop loans among the farmers to make the wheat cultivation a complete success.

Roy said three varieties of wheat--- BARI-25, 26, 28---were cultivated in three upazilas of the district.

Meanwhile, in Rajshahi, agricultural scientists and researchers have urged the farmers to cultivate wheat through using seeder machine to boost yield.

They said the machine developed by the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) will also help lessening pressure on irrigation water for the wheat farming side by side with minimising the production cost.

They revealed this while addressing two separate farmers' field day meetings on projection of the seeder machine at Damdama and Belpukur villages under Tanore and Godagari upazilas respectively in the district on Tuesday.

Farm Machinery and Post-harvest Process Engineering (FMPE) Division and On-Farm Research Division (OFRD), Barind centre under BARI jointly organized the meetings in association with Krishi Gobeshona Foundation (KGF). More than 160 farmers joined the programmes.

Principal Investigator and Principal Scientific Officer of FMPE Dr Ayub Hossain and its Senior Scientific Officer Dr Arshadul Hoque addressed the meetings as focal persons with Senior Scientific Officer of OFRD (Barind Centre) Dr Shakhawat Hossain in the chair.

Upazila Agriculture Officer Shafiqul Islam and Assistant Engineer of Barind Multipurpose Development Authority Shariful Islam also spoke. Dr Ayub Hossain opined that there is an enormous scope of increasing Rabi crop in the region with minimum tillage and seeding method using residual soil moisture.