Bumper wheat production expected in Rajshahi
Tuesday, 23 December 2014
RAJSHAHI, Dec 22 (BSS): Farmers and others concerned, including agriculturists, are very much optimistic about the overall wheat production during the current season in the region particularly the vast Barind tract.
Dr Israil Hossain, Chief Scientific Officer of Regional Wheat Research Center (RWRC), told BSS that timely plantation of seeds accompanied by the current cold spell, is being considered as a positive sign for attaining bumper production of the cash crop.
He said farmers of the Barind area were found more confident in wheat farming on more new lands, due to the water-stress condition, as wheat is a less-water consuming plant. Wheat Research Center has so far released 24 varieties of wheat for commercial cultivation. The recently released six varieties including prodip, bijoy, shatabdi and BARIGAM-26 are more tolerant to leaf blight and leaf rush-disease with additional advantage of higher yield, Dr Israil added.
"We have developed projection plots on around 15 hectares of farmers' field in Barind area for boosting seed production of the latest varieties during the current season, besides various other motivational campaigns and training programmes," he added.
Farmers have cultivated wheat on around 0.17 million hectares of land against the target of 0.17 million hectares fixed by the Department of Agriculture Extension in eight districts in Rajshahi division showing enhancement of 105 percent than the target.
Nuruzzaman Mondal, Additional Director of Department of Agricultural Extension, said wide-range promotion of the newly innovated variety could help increase wheat yield.
He opined that there is no alternative to promoting modern technology and using high yielding wheat seeds to reduce dependency on food import to meet the internal demand.
Dr Ilias Hossain, Senior Scientific Officer of RWRC, said substantial and sustainable expansion of wheat farming can mitigate the existing water-stress condition in the high Barind tract as wheat is environment friendly crop.