Mangetout was always a winter harvest. Now it can be grown all year round

A mangetout seed invented by a team of researchers of Sylhet Agricultural University (SAU) has opened new opportunities for farmers to grow the winter crop round the year.

The team led by Md Shahidul Islam started the research in 2015 on how to grow this crop all year round, said Kazi Lutful Bari, deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) in Moulvibazar.

This highly complex research was expected to take seven to eight years. But the team completed the task fast and invented the new bean sprout in 2018, he added.

Mangetout seed SAU-1 and SAU-2 were invented for cultivation in summer and monsoon seasons while there are two other varieties: white flower bean SAU-one and purple variety SAU-two, said Nilufar Yasmin Munalisa Sweety, an agriculture officer of Sreemangal upazila of Moulvibazar. In 2018, about 50 grams of seeds were handed over to the local farmers in the upazila, according to the DAE.

The farmers failed to get a good yield after sowing the new variety of seeds on five decimals of land.

In 2020, seven farmers planted the seeds again. Among them, Shipon Mia and his uncle Ahsan Habib utilised 40 decimals of land and found commendable success.

The two had utilised the seeds twice before in collaboration with the agriculture department, Mia said. But they did not get that much success then as they knew very little of the seeds. "But still we were able to earn Tk 80,000 from eight decimals of land."

This year, the two planted 45 pieces of seeds.

Now, they are used to collecting 70-80 kilograms of mangetout from the land every week.

Bean has a huge demand in the local market and it is sold at Tk 120 a kg, he said.

The two have so far sold mangetout worth Tk 1 lakh and hope to earn Tk 1 lakh more, Mia added.

The seed has not yet been marketed and the agricultural university has a plan to spread its cultivation across the country, said Sreenibash Debnath, additional director of DAE's Sylhet divisional office.