The present study was conducted to assess the economic impact of practicing Integrated Pest Management technology on bitter gourd production in Chandina upazila under Comilla district of Bangladesh. Sample survey was carried out over 70 bitter gourd producing farms. Out of 70 farmers, 35 for IPM and 35 for Non-IPM farmers were selected. The study revealed that majority of the farmers had moderately favorable attitude towards IPM technology for producing bitter gourd as shown by farmers' attitude index. IPM farmers earned more profit than Non-IPM farmers on bitter gourd production. The average total cost of bitter gourd production per hectare was estimated at about Tk 3,68,335 and 4,44,508 for IPM and Non-IPM farmers, respectively. The average gross returns per hectare were found at about Tk 8,60,016; 8,55,642; and 8,15,947 for marginal, small and medium IPM farmers, respectively. The same were Tk 8,22,654; 7,53,373 and 7,48,255 for marginal, small, and medium Non-IPM farmers, respectively. The estimated BCR was higher for IPM farmers (2.29) than Non-IPM farmers (1.69). Partial budget analysis showed that IPM technology was more profitable and net benefit was Tk 1,61,557. Although bitter gourd production was profitable, farmers faced several problems such as lack of training and technical knowledge, inadequate extension services, lack of marketing facilities etc. in using IPM technology.
The main objective of the study was to identify and analyze the inefficiency and yield gaps of wheat production in Bangladesh. The study employed farm level cross sectional data from three major wheat growing areas of Bangladesh. Yield of wheat was found to vary across locations and farm categories. The average technical inefficiency of wheat production in Bangladesh is 16. This indicates a good potential for increasing wheat output by 16 percent with the existing technology and levels of inputs. Education and training on wheat of the farm operators was found to have significant effect on yield and technical efficiency of wheat production.
Banana (Musa sp.) is one of the most important fruit crops in the world. It is also a very popular fruit crop and cultivated widely in Bangladesh. Banana diseases are one of the limiting factors for its production. Recently, a new banana leaf blight was detected in various districts of Gazipur, Bangladesh, with an incidence of 5 to 10% in June 2020 and 15 to 20% in January 2021. The initial symptoms of the disease were narrow dark brown lesions (2 to 5 x 5 to 12 mm) that later became irregular brown spots (10 to 15 x 5 to 7 mm). The lesions gradually spread from the middle of the leaf to the margin and dark brown spots appeared on the diseased leaves. There was a clear golden yellowish boundary around the spot. Blighted tissue often covered one-thirds to one-half of the infected leaves. To isolate the pathogen, 100 diseased leaves were collected from five different locations in Gazipur, Bangladesh. Small pieces (5x5 mm) were cut from the margins of lesions and surface sterilized with 75% ethanol for 30 s followed by 1% NaClO for 1 min. The samples were then rinsed three times with sterile distilled water, dried on sterilized filter paper, and placed on 1% water agar at 25°C for 7 days. Hyphal tips were then excised, placed on PDA and incubated at 25°C for 7 days. From the 20 isolates obtained, the colony characteristics and conidial morphology of three isolates, BLS_BU1, BLS_BU2, and BLS_BU3, were examined. The colony of all of three isolates was white, cottony, and circular in growth. The acervuli were black and covered all the culture plate. Conidia of all the isolates were 5-celled, fusiform, and wider in the middle than the apical and basal cells. The three internal cells were olivaceous, concolourous, and slightly constricted at the septae; the terminal cells were hyaline (Shi et al. 2015). The conidium measured 20.3 ± 1.2 to 22.7 ± 1.8 by 7.2 ± 0.6 to 8.6 ± 0.4 μm. The mean lengths of the two to four hyaline apical appendages were 20.5 to 30.25 μm and the hyaline basal appendage was 6.1 to 7.6 μm (Han et al. 2019). DNA was extracted from the fungal colony using a DNeasy Plant Mini Kit (Qiagen). PCR was performed with primers ITS1/ITS4 ITS region and Sanger sequenced by Macrogen (Seoul, Korea) (White et al. 1990). Isolates BLS_BU1 (MH707065), BLS_BU2 (MH707065), and BLS_BU3 (MH712283) had a sequence similarity of over 99% with GenBank reference Pestalotiopsis microspora (MH707065) of National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database. The reconstructed phylogenetic tree also confirmed their phylogenetic position. To assess pathogenicity, the leaves of four 2-month-old healthy plants were needle wounded and inoculated with a spore suspension (106 spores/ ml) harvested from 10-day-old cultures of isolate BLS_BU1. As a control treatment, five leaves of two healthy plants were inoculated with sterile distilled water. Treated plants were maintained in the field with average temperature ranging from 28°C to 30°C and relative humidity from 75% to 80%. After 2 weeks, all inoculated leaves produced characteristic symptoms similar to those observed in the field. However, the control plants did not develop any symptoms. Pestalotiopsis microspora from the inoculated leaves was successfully reisolated, thus confirmed that P. microspora was the cause of leaf blight of banana. To our knowledge, banana appears to be a new host of P. microspora. this This is the first report of leaf blight of banana caused by P. microspora in Bangladesh.
The objective of this study was to isolate and characterize antagonistic rhizobacteria from chili against a notorious phytopathogen Phytophthora capsici. Among the 48 bacteria isolated, BTLbbc-02, BTLbbc-03, and BTLbbc-05 were selected based on their inhibitory activity against P. capsici. They were tentatively identified as Burkholderia metallica BTLbbc-02, Burkholderia cepacia BTLbbc-03, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa BTLbbc-05, respectively, based on their 16S rRNA gene sequencing. All inhibited the growth of P. capsici at varying levels by inducing characteristic morphological alterations of P. capsici hyphae. The cell-free culture supernatant of all three isolates impaired motility (up to 100%) and caused lysis (up to 50%) of the halted zoospores. Bioassays revealed that Pseudomonas sp. had higher antagonism and zoospore motility-inhibitory effects against P. capsici compared with two other isolates, Burkholderia spp. and B. metallica, which caused vacuolation in mycelium. All three bacteria suppressed sporangium formation and zoosporogenesis of P. capsici, and improved the seed germination and growth of cucumber. Our findings suggest that epiphytic bacteria, B. metallica, B. cepacia, and P. aeruginosa, could be used as potential biocontrol agents against P. capsici. A further study is required to ensure conformity with the existing regulations for soil, plant, and human health.
Financial and factor demand analysis of broiler production has been estimated in this paper using a farm survey data of 210 farmers from four major broiler producing areas (i.e., Dhaka, Rajshahi, Mymensingh and Chittagong) of Bangladesh. Findings showed that broiler farming incurred most of its cost from its operating input, mainly feed. Broiler farming was financially profitable, but the performance of Mymensingh division was comparatively low, arising from a high unit cost of production and low unit price selling than the others. The net return was highest in Dhaka division, while Rajshahi division showed the highest ratio in returns on investment. However, in terms of cost (variable) and net return of broiler farming, no significant difference among the study areas was observed. The value of own price elasticity for feed, chick price, and labour price were negative and inelastic, which were -0.00249, -0.05718, and -0.13101, respectively. Besides, a complementary relationship was found between feed and day-old chick and feed and labour while day-old chick and labour were substitutes. The study also revealed that cross price elasticity was highly inelastic, and changes in the prices of inputs did not result in massive changes in the quantity demanded of other inputs for broiler farming.
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