A large number of farmers in the ongoing boro season are using fertiliser in their crop fields as per Leaf Colour Charts (LCCs) which is expected to save around 1.5 lakh metric tonnes of urea fertiliser across the country.
“This will also maintain the health of the soil, protect ecological balance and enhance the crop yield by 4-6 percent,” said agriculturist Dr Radheshyam Sarker.
According to a source in the Directorate of Agriculture Extension (DAE), the use of LCC charts at the farmers' level will save around 1.5 lakh metric tonnes of urea worth Tk 180 crore.
“Besides, the reduced use of urea will indirectly benefit several lakh people and ensure food security apart from maintaining the ecological balance,” said the DAE official.
Dr Radheshyam, project director of Leaf Color Chart under the DAE, said around 4 lakh LCC charts will be used by the farmers throughout the country this season.
He informed that some 3 lakh pieces of LCC charts, imported from the Philippines in the fiscal 2007-08 and 2008-09, have been distributed free of cost among the farmers. “Import of another one lakh LCC charts is under process,” he said.
Under the LCC project, around 3 lakh farmers in 12,200 blocks across the country were provided with LCC charts free of cost and most of them experienced increased crop yields.
The DAE is making hectic efforts to popularise the LCC technology among ordinary farmers in the current boro season by imparting training to 37,000, holding 8,000 block demonstrations and organising 2,700 field days.
Contacted, deputy director of food crops wing (rice) at the DAE, Fazal-e-Elahi said that in the current 2009-10 season, some 48 lakh hectares of land were brought under Boro cultivation with the production target set at 1.90 crore metric tonnes.
In the last season (2008-09), the yield was 1.85 lakh metric tonnes from around 49 lakh hectares brought under boro cultivation.
According to sources at the IRRI office in Dhaka, the DAE imported one lakh pieces of LCC from the Philippines for the ongoing boro season while BRAC and PKSF imported 20,000 pieces of LCC charts each from the Philippines.
Invented by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the leaf colour chart (LCC) is a plastic, ruler-shaped strip containing four panels of colour ranges from yellowish green to dark green.
It is an easy-to-use and cheaper diagnostic tool for monitoring the relative greenness of a rice leaf as an indicator of the plant nitrogen (N) status.