Excellent sprouting in Malta trees signals a bumper production

GAIBANDHA, Mar 16 (BSS): Excellent sprouting in the trees of Malta, a golden juicy fruit, is predicting the growers' bumper production against the popular crop in Sadullapur upazila here now.
The trees have already worn eye catching looks with huge blooms and would go to fruit formation stage within few days. The farmers are nurturing the trees as per suggestions of the agri experts to get desired output.
According to sources Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) adopted Second Crop Diversification Project, a gigantic one, in all the 52 upazilas including Sadullapur upazila across the country in 2010.
Under this project, a pragmatic plan was also taken to introduce the cultivation of Malta, one of the high value crops, in farmers\\' level of the upazila in 2013 for the first time to meet the growing demand of nutrition and help the growers earn economical profit.
Accordingly, the sub assistant agriculture officers and the officials of upazila agriculture office motivated the farmers to farm the variety on their land to attain the cherished goal.
In response, a total of 32 farmers of different villages including Baradaudpur, Tarafbazit, Edilpur, Chhaigari, Dhaperhat and Ghegarbazar of the upazila planted the saplings of Malta in June, last year.
Earlier, the upazila agriculture office provided the saplings of the variety (BARI Malta-1) and need base training to the farmers to inspire the growers and to make the cultivation a grand success as well.
Now, the growers are nurturing the plants like their own children to materialize their dream as per the directives of the field level agri officials and the officials of upazila agriculture office and the project.
Naresh Chandra, a farmer of Tarafbazit village of the upazila, said he had planted 50 saplings of Malta on his land last year being motivated by the officials of the agriculture department. All the trees grew well on his orchard and had already bloomed massively and within very short time they would go to fruit formation stage, the farmer said adding that the excellent flowering in the trees was giving them desired yield against the crop.
Expressing the satisfaction over massive sprouting in the trees, upazila agriculture officer Obaidur Rahman Mondal said Malta is health fruit in which vitamin c is found in abundance.