Research-Development and Dissemination Activities for Pulses

and Oil Seed Crops in BRAC

By

Dr. S. C. Biswas

Importance of Pulse crops• Pulses are very important crops in Bangladesh.

• Pulses are also a food crop in Bangladesh and used to call as Poor’s Men Protein.

• Pulses play a significant role in rainfed agriculture of Bangladesh.

• On an average about 5 lakh 50 thousand tons of pulses are produced in Bangladesh every year.

• Among different pulses, Grass pea, Lentil, Mungbean, Chick pea, Black gram, Pigeon pea and Cow pea etc. are the major ones and they contribute more than 95% of the total pulses production in the country.

Contd.

• Food legumes have traditionally been cultivated in Bangladesh under rain fed condition and require less input.

• Their inherently low yield potential compared to cereals, susceptibility to diseases and pest and sensitivity to micro climatic changes contribute to their yield instability.

• Since Bangladesh has an acute shortage of food grain production, cereal cultivation receives top priority in the farming community.

• So the area and production of almost all the legumes have been decreased over the last decade.

• To halt the declining trend in area and production, research program was launched by BRAC during the year 2000 and seed production as well as variety development program was initiated to augment the pulse production of Bangladesh.

Importance of oil crops

• Edible oil is an important ingredient of our regular diet. This oil is obtained from two main sources; plants and animals.

• The oil derived from plants is more desirable than the fat derived from animal source.

• The oil obtained from the plant can be easily digested and its nutritive value is also high.

• The total consumption of oil is 12.8gm per capita per day and out of that only 4.2 gm comes from the plant in Bangladesh (BBS, 1978).

• There is scope for meeting this current nutritional deficiency by the cultivation of oil crops.

• Considering the importance of these oil crops BRAC started its oil seed program during the year 2000-2001 and has been playing an important role in the cultivation of oilseeds in Bangladesh.

Seed Production of Pulse Crops

• Considering production potentiality as pulse crop, soil improving capability and huge potentiality of making confectionary products, seed production program of Mungbean was started during the year 2000-01.

• A production target plan of 40 metric tons of certified seed of Mungbean was fixed for Magura region during the year 2000-2001.

• One of the popular improved Mungbean varieties, BARI moog-2 was selected for seed production and its certified seeds were produced at 4 locations of the region.

• Since a very good response from the pulse growers was observed in the following year i.e. in the 2001-2002.

• In the following year a target of 30 metric tons of Mungbean seed production was taken involving 255 contract growers.

Table. Production target of certified seeds of Mungbean during the year 2000-2001.

Location Crop Variety Land(acre)

Farmers Certi-fied seed (MT)

Magura Sadar, Sreepur, Hatgopalpur & Kotchandpur

Mungbean BARI moog-2 80 240 40

Table. Target plan of certified seed production of Mung bean during 2001- 2002.

Pulse crop

Variety Land (acre)

No. of farmers

Requi-red founda-tion seed

Certified seed (kg)

Mung bean

BARI moog -2 60 180 480 20000

Mung bean

BARI moog- 5 25 75 250 10000

Total 2 85 255 730 30000

Lentil

• Lentil is the second important pulse crop in Bangladesh covering about 2.07 lakh hectares of land producing about 1 lakh 70 thousand tons.

• The farmers don’t get quality seed for cultivation in time.

• Under these circumstances BRAC has initiated seed production in Lentil to produce and distribute quality seeds of lentil for boosting lentil production at the farmer’s level.

• In the year of 2000-2001 and 2001-2002, Lentil was included in the seed production program and for the production of 10 metric tons of certified seed of lentil for the year 2001-2002.

• Foundation seeds of BARI masur-2 & BARI masur- 4 were produced in the Birol Seed Farm, Dinajpur.

Table. Foundation seed production of Lentil in Birol farm, Dinajpur during 2000- 2001.

Pulse crop

Variety Land (acre)

Yield (kg)

Yield(kg acre-1)

Lentil BARI masur -2 0.40 40.00 100.00

BARI masur -4 1.30 288.00 221.00

Total - 1.70 328.00 -

Seed Production Plot of Barimashur-4

Table. Target plan of certified seed production of Lentil during 2001- 2002.

Pulse crop

Variety Land (acre)

No. of farmers

Requi-red founda-tion seed

Certified seed (kg)

Lentil BARImasur- 2 2.5 8 30.00 1000

Lentil BARImasur- 4 23 69 276.00 9000

Total 25.5 77 306.00 10000

Development of New Varieties

• BRAC has developed an improved Mungbean variety through selection from elite germplasms after starting its research activities on pulse crops during the year 2000-

2001. • Setting an objective of the development of a short duration

type yellow seeded variety like ‘Sonamoog’ we started our Mung bean variety development programme.

• A yellow coloured line(YS-1/Holud Moog) was identified from the different Mungbean accessions through selection.

Germplasm Collection & Evaluation of Mung bean

Main characteristics of this selected advance line are:

• Uncommon attractive golden yellow coloured moderate size seed.• Short duration improved line; determinate with bushy plant type. • Relatively synchronized fruit ripening, moderate size drum shaped

seed. • Tolerant to major diseases.• Insensitive to seasonal influence and can be grown almost throughout

the year.• Good cooking quality and less turmeric is required for cooking due to

yellow coloured cotyledons (carotene content = 3.32mg/100gm).• Very thin seed soat & preferred taste.• Moderate size light green coloured fruits and yield is around 1.5 to 2.0

t/ha. • Increased seed recovery percentage and market price due to its better

quality. • Cropping intensity can be increased significantly due to its short

duration.

Yellow seed coat-I, Normal green seed coat type & Yellow seed coat-II

Fig. A Plant of YS-I (Holud Moog).

Table. Mean values of plant characters of Yellow seed coat-I (Holud Moog)) & BARI moog- 5 grown at BARDC, Gazipur).

Plant Characters YS-I(Holud Moog)

BARI moog-5

Plant height (cm) 26.00 27.00

Days taken to 1st flowering 31.00 32.00

Days taken to 1st harvesting 47.00 50.00

Total no. of fruits/plant 36.70 21.00

Fruit length (cm) 8.07 9.60

No. of seeds/ fruit 11.66 10.80

100-seed wt. (gm) 4.46 5.80

Harvest index (%) 47.44 39.70

Yield/acre (Kg) 545.00 485.00

Seed recovery (%) 70.00 52.00

Duration (days) 58.00 65.00

Different Stages of YS-I Mungbean Line

Table. Mean values of plant characters of Yellow seed coat-I (YS-I) BARI moog- 5 & BINA moog-7 grown at BARDC, Gazipur(Kh-2’2011).

VarietyDays taken to crop matu-rity

Plant hei-ght/plant(cm)

No. of bran-ches/plant

No. of pod clus-ters/plant

No. of pod/clus-ter

Total no. of pods/plant

Pod length/pod(cm)

Yield/ha(Kg)

Seedreco-very(%)

Virus inci-dence(%)

YS-1 62.00 41.18 1.5 4.4 5.4 21.90 7.60 1045.00 65.22 5.43

BARI-moog-5

70.00 47.91 1.10 5.0 5.20 21.0 8.50 691.00 38.42 6.06

BINA-moog-7

74.00 50.25 3.60 7.7 7.10 28.90 6.30 544.00 52.31 17.70

Table. Determination of Calcium, Iron, Zinc, Magnesium, Potassium, Sulphur & Boron content in the 3 mung bean varieties.

Sample ID

Ca Mg K S B Zn Fe

% ppm

YS-1 0.895 0.415 1.345 0.330 23.700 32.940 154.590

BARI moog-5

0.940 0.405 1.130 0.380 23.100 30.000 148.140

BINAmoog-7

0.670 0.320 1.015 0.300 24.300 28.050 161.100

Remarks - thanBARImoog-5 & + thanBINA-moog-7

+ thanbothBARImoog-5 &BINAmoog-7

+ thanbothBARImoog-5 &BINAmoog-7

-than BARImoog-5but +thanBINAmoog-7

+ than BARImoog-5- thanBINAmoog-7

+ thanbothBARImoog-5 &BINAmoog-7

+ thanBARImoog-5 but –thanBINAmoog-7

Rapeseed and Mustard

• Of all the edible oil seed crops grown in Bangladesh, Rapeseed & Mustard ranks first in respect of area under cultivation.

• Although Bangladesh occupies 5th position in the list of Rapeseed & Mustard producing countries, per hectare yield of oilseeds is very low compared to that of other countries of the world (Khaleque, 1985).

• Although Bangladesh occupies 5th position in the list of Rapeseed & Mustard producing countries, per hectare yield of oilseeds is very low compared to that of other countries of the world (Khaleque, 1985).

• BRAC started the seed production program during the year 2000-2001.

• During the year 2000-2001 setting a target of 10.5 metric tons of rape seed, 6.8 metric tons of certified seeds of improved rape seed varieties were produced in the Magura region.

• Side by side foundation seeds of Tori-7 (Improved), BARI sharisha-8, BINA sharisha-3, M-27 and BINA sharisha-4 were also produced in the Seed Production Farm, Birol, Dinajpur

Table. Production of Rapeseed (certified seed) of BRAC during the year 2000-2001.

Name of the varieties

Land(acre)

No. of Farmers

Production(kg)

Remarks

T A T A T A Since all the varieties were belong to the B. napus group shattering problem was observed during the final harvest.

BARI sharisha-8

5 5.46 12 11 2500 1724

BINA sharisha-3

10 9.70 37 21 4000 2475

BINA sharisha-4

10 9.90 14 23 4000 2638

25 25.06 63 55 10500 6837

Table. Production target plan of certified seeds of Rapeseed & Mustard for

BRAC during 2001-2002.

Crops Name of the

varieties

Source Land(acre)

No. of farmers

Produc-tion

(kg)

Rapeseed

Tori-7 BARI 30 90 10,000

M-27 BINA 10 30 4,000

Mustard Pucca Rai

BADC 6 18 2,000

Total 46 138 16,000

Groundnut

• Groundnut is also an important oil seed crop grown in different parts of Bangladesh particularly in the Char areas and mainly cultivated under rain fed conditions.

• Groundnut however, can be cultivated with very low inputs and it can also be grown in both the Kharif and Rabi season as well.

• Since improved high yielding variety of Groundnut can increase the production significantly there is also a good prospect of large seeded high yielding good quality variety of Groundnut in Bangladesh.

White Testa Colour (WTC) Groundnut A White Testa Colour (WTC)

Groundnut variant was identified through ground nut improvement programme.

Characteristics• Variant was found to be true

breeding.• Normal looking erect type

plants.• Moderate plant height, good

vigour, good fruiting (no. of fruits/plant-30-32).

• Fruits had white testa coloured seed, fruits were either 3 or 4 seeded.

• Seeds were intermediate size and were flattened round shaped.

• Yield/acre -1100 -1200 Kg.

Chinese Groundnut Characteristics• High yielding improved type large seeded variety.• Robust type bushy plant with moderate plant height and

excellent vigour.• Large size leaves, flowers & fruits.• Fruits are however, 2-seeded hence the seeds are also

larger size.• Near about 100 gm of fruits can be harvested from a single

plant while seed yield/plant is 70-80 gm.• Hundred seed wt. is around 70-80 gm while in the local

type it is only 45-50 gm.• Free from major diseases and attack of insect pests is

almost nil.• More than 3 tons/ha yield can be obtained from this

variety.

Table. Studies on the morphological characters of local and exotic materials of Groundnut.

Name of the variety Plant height(cm)

Total no. offruits/plant

Fruitlength/fruit (cm)

100-seedweight(g)

Seed yield/plant(g)

Yield(t ha-1)

China-1 69 44 3.83 74.2 27.1 3.76

Local 114 32 2.86 45.3 20.8 1.51

DG-2 80 49 3.14 49.3 24.5 2.00

Jhinga badam 132 43 3.31 48.6 24.3 2.21

Mean values of3 indigenous varieties

109 42 3.10 47.7 23.3 1.90

% increased or decreased over indigenousvarieties

-59 6.3 23.55 55.7 16.6 97.89

Field of Chinese Ground nut

Fruits of Chinese Ground nut Variety

Fruits of Chinese & Local Ground nut Varieties

Seeds of Chinese Ground nut

Sunflower

• Sunflower is another important oil crop grown all over the world for its good quality edible oil source extracting from its seed.

• This crop is characterized by its large showy flower and has huge number of seeds which contain 44-45% of edible oil.

• Unlike erucic acid in rapeseed, it has linolenic acid as an important constituent of sunflower oil.

• This linolenic acid is beneficial for human health and for this reason the popularity of sunflower is increasing day by day in Bangladesh in recent times.

Contd.• Since it is a photo insensitive and widely adapted crop,

sunflower may be a promising oil crop in Bangladesh. • Since sunflower is relatively a new oil crop in

Bangladesh, it is not widely cultivated as oil crop despite of its immense possibilities.

• Hybrid sunflower variety with bird damage tolerant characteristics might be major breakthrough for it’s commercial cultivation.

• Sunflower requires not as much of irrigation and can also be cultivated in the coastal areas since it can tolerate moderate degree of salinity throughout the growing period.

BRAC Activities on Sunflower• Considering the importance of sunflower as a promising oil

crop in Bangladesh, BRAC has started sunflower variety screening program during the year 2001-2002.

• On the basis of our observation we used to recommend the suitable variety/varieties to purchase good quality seeds from the reputed companies of the respective variety/ varieties to distribute seeds to the sunflower growers.

• Since it is a continuous process every year BRAC is conducting the variety screening trials regularly before purchasing seed.

• One of its part of variety screening program, 2 newly introduced hybrid varieties namely ‘Aguara-4’ and ‘Hysun-33’ received from Advanta Seed Company and were evaluated during 2010-2011 along with 1 local OP variety ‘Kironi’ for agronomic performances.

Varieties Plant height at finalharvest(cm)

Days taken to complete flowe-ring

Cropdura-tion(days)

Head dia-meter(cm)

Seed yield/plant(g)

Yield (kg acre-1)

Remarks

Kironi 167 79 112 15.3 34 645 Yield of Hysun-33 was 2.63%than Kironi & 7.46% higher than Aguara-4.

Aguara-4 153 84 119 16.8 44 616

Hysun-33 149 92 117 21.2 82 662

Table. Flowering performance and yield of three sunflower varieties.

Trial Plots of Hybrid Sunflower Varieties

Trial plot of ‘Kironi’

Dissemination Activities with Pulses and Oil Seed Crops

• One of the major agricultural activities of BRAC Agriculture programme is to disseminate the mature and productive agricultural technologies to the farmers’ field through large scale farmer’s participatory demonstration.

• Recently BRAC initiated agricultural technology dissemination in the cyclone prone coastal region of Bangladesh with pulses and oil seed crops.

• Sunflower (Hysun-33) was introduced as a field crop in the coastal regions of Bangladesh in rabi season.

• It was grown by the BRAC project beneficiary farmers of Barguna, Patuakhali, Jhalokhati, Pirojpur, Satkhira, Bagerhat, and Khulna districts during 2010-2011 Rabi season.

Contd.Yield and plant characteristics of sunflower (Hysun-33) in the farmers’ field of the coastal regions of Bangladesh during Rabi 2010-2011.

District

Yield and plant character

Population (plant m-2)

Flower diameter (cm)

Seed/flower

% of filled grains

1000 seed weight (g)

Yield (t ha-1)

Barguna 3.39 23.3 1413 94.3 68.1 2.9

Patuakhali 3.70 21.6 1291 95.6 68.5 3.1

Jhalokathi 4.02 20.2 1282 99.0 66.3 3.2

Pirojpur 3.68 19.5 912 98.7 57.8 3.2

Satkhira 3.26 17.0 1453 87.5 64.0 3.1

Bagerhat 2.13 26.4 1544 87.7 59.4 2.6

Khulna 3.16 21.1 1174 96.3 76.0 4.2

Average 3.33 21.3 1296 93.0 65.7 3.2

Table. Area and yield of Mungbean, Kheshari and Sesame crops cultivated by the farmers in the coastal regions of Bangladesh in Boro/Rabi season 2010-11.

District

Mungbean Kheshari Sesame

Land (ha)

Yield(t ha-1)

Land (ha)

Yield (t ha-1)

Land (ha)

Yield (t ha-1)

Barguna 5568 1.23 634 1.37 138 1.48

Patuakhali 3121 1.10 858 1.22 - -

Jhalokathi 853 1.08 1050 1.41 237 1.13

Pirojpur 364 1.17 2569 1.12 - -

Satkhira - - 1060 1.31 - -

Bagerhat 540 1.05 - - - -

Khulna 1065 1.54 487 1.18 97 1.20

Total/Average

11,5,11 1.20 6,6,58 1.27 4,72 1.27

Future Strategies on Pulses and Oilseed Crops

• BRAC will continue its effort in identifying as well as in the development of new improved varieties of pulses and oilseed crops in Bangladesh to ensure the sustainability of its agriculture.

• Major thrust will be given to develop early maturing varieties with higher yield potentiality and nutritional quality, disease and pest resistance with moderate to highly tolerant to the biotic and abiotic stresses.

• Introduction of high value non-rice crops in the cropping system to increase farm profitability will get preference in preparing research plan of BRAC.

• BRAC will continue its effort to produce and disseminate the good quality seeds of pulses and oil seed crops and also will disseminate production technologies of pulses as well as oil seed crops to the farmers’ field in the coming years to increase the production of pulses and oilseeds in Bangladesh.