By Dr Aynal Haque
RAJSHAHI, Sept 1, 2020 (BSS) – Brridhan-82, a variety of paddy, has started gaining popularity among farmers in the region including its vast barind tract along with the Brridhan-48 for the last couple of years.
The newly innovated paddy variety has opened up a new horizon in food security side by side mitigating the crises of irrigation water.
The cultivation of Brridhan-82, a short duration and drought tolerant paddy variety innovated and released by Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) for Aush season in 2017, has gradually been increasing with gaining popularity among farmers, Dr Aminul Islam, Chief Scientific Officer of BRRI, told BSS.
The main feature of Brridhan-82 is high yielding, transplanting aush plant, 28% content of amylose, 1000 grain weight 20.84 gram and crop duration 100-105 days, he said.
“I cultivated BRRI Dhan-82 on five bighas of land this year and got 17 mounds per bigha,” said Mafiz Uddin, 48, a farmer of Patharghata village under Godagari upazila in the district.
He, however, could have got hardly nine mounds of paddy per bigha if he had cultivated Parija, a conventional paddy variety of the region, he said, adding that the yield from Brridhan-82 inspires him to cultivate the paddy variety on his lands in the years to come.
Jahangir Alam, 45, another farmer of Bhugail village under Nachole Upazila, said he has harvested 15 mounds per bigha after cultivating the variety on around eight bighas of land and the yield makes him delighted by dint of its short-duration characteristics.
Expressing his happiness over cultivating the variety, Alam mentioned that the conventional parija variety is being replaced by the new variety which is a good sign for the region in terms of boosting yield.
Ataur Rahman, 38, a farmer of Bijoynagar village under Godagari Upazila, said that the BRRI Dhan-82 variety has brought enormous benefit for them in cultivating paddy in drought prone rain-fed environment.
By virtue of early harvesting characteristics, the variety supplements the farming of transplanted Aman and various Rabi crops like tomato, brinjal, mustard and vegetables as the region is conventionally famous for farming these crops abundantly.
All the government agricultural extension and research organisations concerned are promoting the variety in the Barind tract for boosting rice production.
“We have developed 28 projection plots on around 40 bighas of land for promoting the variety among the farmers,” said Dr Aminul Islam.
Another 21 demonstration plots were developed on 283 acres of land on behalf of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) to boost rice production.
“We have set a target to produce 50 tonnes of certified seeds of the variety this season,” said Rafiqul Islam, Director of Seed Production Project of Barind Multipurpose Development Authority, adding that they developed seed production plots on 17.5 hectares of land to attain the target.
Meanwhile, farmers have started harvesting aush paddy as bumper yield is seen everywhere in the region, creating scopes of ensuring food security besides creating job opportunities for many people amid the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
Farming of Aush paddy has exceeded target predicting a record production of the food crop in Rajshahi division during the current season despite the Covid-19 pandemic situation.
The DAE has set a target of producing around 7.5 lakh tonnes of Aush rice from 2.52 lakh hectares of land in all eight districts in the division. But, the farmers cultivated the paddy on around 2.54 lakh hectares of land after the best uses of facilities provided by the government.
Sudhendra Nath Roy, Additional Director of DAE, Rajshahi said the government has adopted diversified steps including giving incentives and technological support to promote the aush rice farming.
He said the Aush farming is very much cost effective as it requires less production cost and faces less natural calamity.
Last year, the farmers produced 5.56 lakh tonnes of Aush rice from around 2.38 lakh hectares of land in Rajshahi division.