KU develops salinity-tolerant fruits for coastal areas

Researchers at Khulna University are claiming to have developed salinity-tolerant varieties of fruits, raising the prospects for fruit production in the country's coastal areas.

The experiment has reached its final stage and farmers will be able to cultivate these new varieties within the next three years, said the researchers.

The fruits include: guava, jackfruit, sapodilla (sofeda), plum, hog plum (amra), and pomelo (batabilebu).

Researchers at Germplasm Center of Agrotechnology at Khulna University have worked on this experiment for eight years.

“The new breeds will be fit for cultivating in both salinity-prone coastal areas and other areas,” said Dr Md Abdul Mannan, professor of Agrotechnology at KU and director of the project.

Existing varieties of the fruits are not suitable for cultivation in the coastal area. Generally, they are unable to endure the climate and extreme salinity of the region. As a result, fruit production has dropped in those areas, he said.

Moreover, climate and salinity severely affect the taste of those varieties. The new varieties have been developed keeping these two factors in mind. In one hand, it will increase production, and on the other hand, the taste will be improved, said the professor.

“These new varieties will benefit the farmers. But they will have to wait for two to three years as we need to finish the final stages of the experiment,” he added.  

The experiment is being conducted under a project titled 'Evaluation of fruit germplasm available in the south-west region of Bangladesh on the basis of physio-chemical characteristics and genetics variabilities by random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis' since 2010.