Bung: A traditional practice of potato cultivation in eastern hills of Nepal

Abstract

Eastern hill region is one of the high potato producing areas of potato in Nepal. There are many traditional potato production systems existing in the region. Among them, 'Bung' and 'Lhose' are very popular systems. There are some under-proven views of naming to this unique cultivation practice. Field observations, key informants' interview, and group discussion were carried out at three sites of Okhaldhunga and Solukhumbu districts in July 2019 to explore the basic information on the bung system. The results of this investigation revealed that the century-old practice utilized marginal sloppy lands of mountains for cultivation of potatoes. Farmers left land fallow for 4-5 years to grow weeds and herbs. Thereafter, they slashed them with a thin layer of soil, stacked them over winter, burned and mixed with the soil making a raised pit. They planted 15-25 potato seed tubers into these pits depending upon the pit size. No additional fertilizer is added to these pits. No intercultural operations are carried out until harvesting. It was explained that the yield of potato from the bung was significantly higher 15-20 kg) than that of general local practice called lhose system (5-7 kg) from the area equivalent to Bung . Some interventions such as high yielding varieties, easy-to-handle equipment for bung preparation and introduction of fast-growing non-hazardous weeds, etc. were the demands of the farmers to increase profit from the bung system.

Study on whole-process mechanized production mode of spring potato in hilly area

“…From the point of view of the leakage rate, the rotary disc manual transmission mode of seeding machine leakage rate is the lowest. In addition, this kind of seeding method had the lowest yield, mainly because the single row cultivation mode had a larger evaporation area, and its drought resistance effect was worse than that of the double row cultivation mode in the arid area(Talagai, 2020) [11] (Upadhyay, 2020) [6] (Ersson, 2018) [2] . In the southwest region, due to the drought in winter and spring, the depth of soil cultivation will affect the overall potato emergence to some extent.…”

Anti-Fungal Properties of Plant Extracts in vitro against Alternaria solani, the Cause of Early Blight in Potato

“…In traditional potato farming systems of hilly areas of Nepal such as Lhose and Bung system in eastern high-hills, Navo system in mid and western hills, Khoria in marginal slopy lands, seeding with ploughing in highlands, potato blight is a major disease (Upadhyay & Timilsina, 2020). Rural people of these areas assume that the chemical pesticides change the taste of potato, and therefore no chemicals are sprayed in potato fields and they are marketed as organic potatoes to fetch higher prices.…”

Comparison of Introduced Iron-Rich Genotypes to Natively Developed Genotypes of Potato for Yield and Yield Attributes in Midhill of Nepal

“…responsible for low productivity of potato in Nepal (Adhikari and Ghimire, 2017). Traditional practices for growing potato crop were also mentioned as limiting factors of potato production by Upadhyay and Timilsina (2020). Among the limiting factors, appropriate high yielding varieties and appropriate seed distribution cycle are considered the most important.…”