After mango and guava, fruit bagging banana farming has been started here for the first time in order to make the cash crop farming hygienic and profitable.
In limited scale, Sujammel Haque and some of his neighbouring farmers of Birhasthail village under Paba Upazila began banana farming in fruit bagging technology this year commercially hoping additional income. Sujammel earned extra money from mango farming through using the modern technology.
Dr Sharof Uddin, Senior Scientific Officer of Regional Horticulture Research Centre, visited the farming practice yesterday urging the fellow farmers to be habituated with the modern technology.
On the occasion, Dr Sharof told BSS that banana is one of the best fruits in Bangladesh. It’s tasty, easy accessible and nutritive. Fruit bagging technology is being widely used in commercial banana farming in many countries like Philippines and Thailand.
The country produces around 77.5 lakh metric tonnes of banana from 46,734 hectares of land every year. Rajshahi district contributes 35,000 metric tonnes from around 2,000 hectares of land.
He opined that there are enormous scopes of promoting the technology in Rajshahi region and across the country as well. Diversified research activities are being carried out for production of best quality and spotless banana.
If the bags were used substantially, use of harmful chemical insecticides and pesticides could be reduced to a greater extent on the huge trees.
Thereby, the technology will open up a new door of exporting banana of the district to various foreign markets.
Mango and Guava farming through using fruit bagging technology has gradually been gaining popularity in the region including its vast Barind tract for the last four to five years.
In the field of protecting the cash crops from pest attack besides getting quality yield, fruit bagging technology is being adjudged as very much beneficial to commercial fruit farming, Dr Sharof added.
Dr Alim Uddin, Principal Scientific Officer of Fruit Research Station in Rajshahi, says banana is one of the commercially important fruit crops in the region but the important cash crop is prone to attacks of insect pests and diseases in all stages of development.
In this field, the technology has created a high hope among the growers and traders towards removing the menace.
One management practice which can help address these problems is fruit bagging because it is another way of preventing contact between the host and insects and diseases as well as minimize mechanical injuries thus improving quality.
The initiative aimed to determine which of the bagging materials and forms gave the best quality of fruits, determine the effect of the bagging materials and forms on pest incidence and find out which of the bagging materials and forms gave the highest yield and net income.
If the technology was used, there will be no spot on banana in the bagged ones.
Besides, the fruit could be protected from all kinds of diseases and pests that will boost the volume of exportable banana. Apart from this, as the market price of the bagged banana is lucrative the growers can sell their produce in high price, reports BSS, Rajshahi.
