Nilphamari Correspondent :
Farmers are likely to get five new varieties of high yielding and qualitative potatoes as Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) developed the breeder seeds (mother seeds) of those potatoes in its ‘Breeder seed production center’ at Deveganj upazila.
Breeders are developed at the last stage of research work and study, conducted for couples of years by agriculture scientists as crossing between two existing variety of potatoes is performed stage by stage.
BARI officials said that after being successful in developing breeder seeds, they hands over them to ‘Domar foundation seed potato production farm’ under Bangladesh agriculture development corporation (BADC) in Nilphamari district few days ago for producing huge amount of foundation seeds this year.
Afterwards, the foundation seeds with recommendation of national seed board will be sold to the farmers through BADC dealers for cultivation on commercial basis in fields.
The five new potato varieties are Bari potato-35, Bari potato -36, Bari potato-37, Bari potato 40 and Bari Potato-41.
The commercial names of the newly developed varieties would be given later before release to the farmers, informed sources.
Those five new varieties are addition to the existing commercial varieties like Diamond (office name BARI-7), Cardinal (Bari-8), Granola (Bari-13), Astorix (Bari-25), Lady Rosseta (Bari-28) and Courage (Bari-29).
Dr. Ashis Kumar Saha, Principal Scientific Officer of BARI in Deviganj upazila informed that newly developed five potato varieties are high yielding as likely to produce 30-40 tones per hector while existing varieties’ production is only 18-20 tones in same area.
He also said that the inner portion of the new five varieties potatoes are either cream or yellow in colour and have high demand in food industry as those are suitable as raw material for manufacturing various popular food items like potao chips, french fri, potato flex, crackers and some others, added Dr. Ashis. Presently, raw materials of those food items are largely imported from foreign countries.
Deputy Director (DD) of ‘Domar foundation seed potato production farm’ of BADC, Md. Enamul Huque said that from the available breeder seeds, they set a target to produce 20-25 tons of foundation seeds this year and later would be sold to the farmers.
” New potato varieties may bring about a boost in agriculture sector and food industry as farmers and the food industry entrepreneurs will be benefited greatly by cultivating and using in larger extent,” said the DD.
Farmers are likely to get five new varieties of high yielding and qualitative potatoes as Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) developed the breeder seeds (mother seeds) of those potatoes in its ‘Breeder seed production center’ at Deveganj upazila.
Breeders are developed at the last stage of research work and study, conducted for couples of years by agriculture scientists as crossing between two existing variety of potatoes is performed stage by stage.
BARI officials said that after being successful in developing breeder seeds, they hands over them to ‘Domar foundation seed potato production farm’ under Bangladesh agriculture development corporation (BADC) in Nilphamari district few days ago for producing huge amount of foundation seeds this year.
Afterwards, the foundation seeds with recommendation of national seed board will be sold to the farmers through BADC dealers for cultivation on commercial basis in fields.
The five new potato varieties are Bari potato-35, Bari potato -36, Bari potato-37, Bari potato 40 and Bari Potato-41.
The commercial names of the newly developed varieties would be given later before release to the farmers, informed sources.
Those five new varieties are addition to the existing commercial varieties like Diamond (office name BARI-7), Cardinal (Bari-8), Granola (Bari-13), Astorix (Bari-25), Lady Rosseta (Bari-28) and Courage (Bari-29).
Dr. Ashis Kumar Saha, Principal Scientific Officer of BARI in Deviganj upazila informed that newly developed five potato varieties are high yielding as likely to produce 30-40 tones per hector while existing varieties’ production is only 18-20 tones in same area.
He also said that the inner portion of the new five varieties potatoes are either cream or yellow in colour and have high demand in food industry as those are suitable as raw material for manufacturing various popular food items like potao chips, french fri, potato flex, crackers and some others, added Dr. Ashis. Presently, raw materials of those food items are largely imported from foreign countries.
Deputy Director (DD) of ‘Domar foundation seed potato production farm’ of BADC, Md. Enamul Huque said that from the available breeder seeds, they set a target to produce 20-25 tons of foundation seeds this year and later would be sold to the farmers.
” New potato varieties may bring about a boost in agriculture sector and food industry as farmers and the food industry entrepreneurs will be benefited greatly by cultivating and using in larger extent,” said the DD.
