Farmer Sirajul Islam has succeeded in growing high-yielding variety (HYV) of sweet pumpkin in Chowagacha Upazila of Jashore district. He was very happy to get a good price. He cultivates sweet pumpkin of Kharip-2 hybrid sweet variety as a companion crop in Guava plantation on 5 bigha land.
Farmer Sirajul Islam’s son of Abed Ali of Swaruppur village of Hakimpur union of the upazila.
He mainly works as a mason by profession. The family should not go on with a small income.
Therefore, besides the mason's job, he focused on agriculture to earn extra income.
He focused on fruit cultivation after seeing fruit cultivation in the area.
Last year, he planted hybrid sweet pumpkin as a companion crop to guava plantation in one bigha of land. He has benefited good from this plantation.
This year, Kharip-2 hybrid sweet variety sweet pumpkin is grown as a companion crop in Guava plantation on 5 bigha land.
Farmer Sirajul Islam said, this year, “I cultivated sweet pumpkin of Kharip-2 hybrid sweet variety as a companion crop in Guava plantation on 5 bigha land”.
It has cost Tk 5 thousand for seeds, Tk 1200 for seedbed (open), TK 1600 for planting, Tk 4,000 for fertilizer, medicine and maintenance. From this 5 bigha land, I have sold sweet pumpkin for about Tk 60,000. More profit with less cost.
In this season, excluding expenses, the profit is about Tk 50,000. Guava is cultivated in this land.
Guava's seedling is 4 months old. He said that as an alternative to traditional farming, he thought of cultivating sweet pumpkins in Guava gardens.
Sitting in the sweet pumpkin field, Sirajul Islam said, I am a mason by profession, and he attracted to fruit cultivation after seeing my neighbors.
Sathi started intercropping out of interest to change the traditional method.
Now he has various fruit orchards in his 13 bigha land.
He said, after the farmers of neighboring villages were attracted by such cultivation, in March 2022, he collected hybrid Chinese sweet pumpkin seeds from Abdur Rashid Mia of Alampur village of Maheshpur upazila of Jhenaidah.
Later I planted it in the land of guava garden. Within a few days, flowers started appearing on the tree.
Fields are filled with sweet pumpkins. From the beginning of planting till now, the cost including maintenance has been incurred about Tk12 thousand. The current field has 35 to 40 bushels of sweet pumpkins.
The estimated value of which is about Tk 20 thousand. In the meantime, many wholesale traders are interested in purchasing the farm, he said.
Farmer Sirajul again said that first he could not understand the cultivation on 5 bigha land. Otherwise, the yield would have been higher.
At that time, local farmers Tuhin Hossain and an expatriate Mahabur Rahman said that they heard new farming methods from Sirajul Islam. we will also start growing sweet pumpkins.
Chougacha Upazila Agriculture Officer Musabbir Hussain said, this year, Suprema and Kharip-2 hybrid varieties of sweet pumpkin have been cultivated on about 60 hectares of land in the upazila.
The Agriculture Department is ready to provide all kinds of support to encourage the farmers to cultivate in such a new way. The Agriculture Department is ready to provide all kinds of support to the farmers who are interested in growing all kinds of vegetables.
