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Commercial cultivation of strawberry promises hefty gains for farmers

ANWAR Au, Rajshahi
Farmers will soon get a new highly value added fruit for commercial cultivation, thanks to years of tireless efforts by two persons.
Rajshahi University Botany teacher Dr Manjur Hossain evolved a variety of strawberry suitable for cultivation in Bangladesh's cli-mate. Horticulturist Quamruzzaman of Natore commercially cultivated the variety on 1.5 bighas of land this year.
The red juicy and nutritious fruit produced by them was supplied to posh markets in Dhaka recently.
With farmer-level price of around Tk 300 per kg, the commercially viable fruit has great export potential and will benefit farmers enormously, the pioneers said while talking to this correspondent at their fields recently.
It can be harvested within two and a half months of plantation and a farmer can earn around Tk 6
lakh from one bigha of land by spendingonlyTk20,000, theysaid.
Besides being taken as a fruit, it is used in preparing ice-cream, jam. jelly, pickle, chocolate, biscuit, cake or milk shake.
Dr Manjur did his PhD in Japan. While returning home, he brought saplings of eight varieties of strawberryin 1996.
Quamruzaaman collected six varieties from Japan and America but none of the varieties sustained in Bangladesh climate.
Manjur evolved some new varieties through tissue culture at the Plant Breeding and Gene Engineering Laboratory at his Botany department. Manjur started filed experiments at Bhadra in Rajshahi city and Quamruzzaman at his Modern Horticulture Center at Harishpur in Natore.
In 2003, three varieties yielded encouraging results and were found suitable in local climate. Out of the three, RU-3 and Modern-3 varieties were found very impressive in size, taste and flavour.
"We found the best results this year in hilly areas at Matiranga Army Zone where 26 Cavalry Division produced quality strawberries from 200 saplings”, said Dr Manjur.
Strawberry cultivation is as easy as growing potatoes or brinjals. Saplings can be sown in rows in November and December. The plant starts flowering within one month of plantation and fruits can be collected till March.
Saplings can be collected from nurseries of Dr Manjur and Quamruzzaman in Natore.
Each plant bears around 250 to 300 grams of fruits and some 6000 plants can be grown on one bigha of land, theysaid.
Now, traders import strawberry from Thailand and Australia at Tk 900 to Tk 1200 per kg. Strawberry flavour is also imported.
A farmer can get 2000 kg fruit from one bigha of land by spending Tk 20,000.