Super bumper wheat production in N region

RANGPUR, Apr 21 (BSS): A super bumper wheat production has been achieved in the northern region this season breaking all previous records.
According to official sources in the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), the farmers have produced over 1.01 million tonnes wheat, higher by 0.19 million tonnes than the fixed target of producing 0.81 million tonnes this time.
The farmers had cultivated wheat on 0.29 million hectares of land, which is higher by about 9.40 per cent or 25,000 hectares than the fixed target of bringing 0.26 million hectares land under its cultivation this season in the region.
The farmers got an excellent average yield rate of 3.46 tonnes wheat per hectare, about 0.41 tonnes higher than the targeted average yield rate of 3.05 tonnes per hectare this year.
According to the DAE sources, wheat production has been increasing in recent years in the northern region where the farmers produced over 0.97 million tonnes wheat during the 2012-2013 and 0.76 million tonnes during 2011-2012 Rabi seasons.
Talking to BSS, Associate Director Agriculture of BRAC International (South Asia and Africa) Dr M A Mazid expressed satisfaction over the bumper wheat production. He predicted brighter prospect of the crop in future in the northern region.
The bumper wheat production was achieved following expanded cultivation of high yielding, disease-resistant, stress - and high temperature tolerant wheat varieties using quality seeds and latest conservation agriculture (CA) - based technologies, he said.
Earlier, wheat production was being affected due to adverse impacts of high temperature on its farming from flowering to ripening stages for late sowing of seeds after harvesting late variety Aman, use of low quality local variety seeds and other reasons.
"But, farmers are sowing high quality, disease resistant and stress tolerant variety wheat seeds timely using the latest, mechanised and low cost technologies after harvesting the short duration Aman rice to get bumper production," Dr Mazid said.
The internationally reputed agriculture scientist suggested for expanded cultivation of less irrigation water consuming cereal crops like wheat and maize adopting the latest technologies at reduced costs to ensure food security amid climate change.
Deputy Director of the DAE Feroz Ahmed said farmers got excellent output of high yielding BARI Gom 25 and 26, Pradip, Bijoy, Protiva, Sotabdi, Sourav, Gaurab and Swarna varieties wheat they cultivated using the latest technologies.
Talking to the news agency, farmers Solaiman Ali, Abdul Momin and Sukumar Mohanta said they had mostly cultivated high yielding variety wheat like BARI Gom26, Pradip and Satabdi and got average yield rates between 3.50 and 3.70 tonnes per hectare.