RANGPUR: Agriculture experts said the farmers could reap more profits through expanded cultivation of Late Blight Resistant (LBR) variety potatoes, reports BSS.

The regional agriculture research centre of Bangladesh Agriculture Research

Institute (BARI) organised the event on Saturday afternoon on its Burirhat office premises to demonstrate cultivation of LBR variety ‘Carolus’ and ‘Alouette’ potatoes.

The main objective of arranging the programme was to disseminate results achieved from three-year long research activities aimed at innovating and selecting late blight disease resistant potatoes and popularising those among farmers for cultivation.

The field day programme was followed by a discussion on the under- research LBR variety potatoes.  Chief Scientific Officer of Burirhat Agriculture Research Centre Rais Uddin Chowdhury presided over the event participated by farmers, officials, researchers, scientists and experts of different agriculture related organisations.

Former Executive Chairman of Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council  Agriculturist Dr Jalal Uddin attended the occasion as the chief guest.

Potato researcher and Principal Scientific Officer at Burirhat Regional Agriculture Research Centre Dr Ashish Kumar Saha and Regional Farm Broadcasting Officer of Agriculture Information Service Abu Sayem addressed as special guests.

Dr Saha said late blight disease reduces potato production by 30 percent annually as the main barrier to potato cultivation and the farmers are being compelled to indiscriminate use of the costly pesticides and insecticides for producing the crop.

“The produced potatoes are becoming poisonous to cause harms to human health and research is being conducted continuously to innovate more effective LBR variety potatoes those will require no pesticides and increase potato production,” he said.

He said the farmers are producing 6 tonnes of potato per hectare cultivating traditional varieties and up to 12 tonnes using quality seed with better managements while the LBR varieties of ‘Carolus’ and ‘Alouette’ produce 35 tonnes potato per hectare.