Prem Kumar, a farmer from Majhiali village in Bagherpara upazila of Jashore, now earns about Tk 100,000 a month from seedless kagzi lemons. He started in 2011 with a single seedless kagzi lemon sapling bought for Tk 200.
From that sapling he raised his own plants and set them out on 10 kathas of land. His first harvest brought in Tk 150,000, and he has expanded step by step since. Last year the orchard covered seven bighas; this year he added another bigha and a half, and it now has 1,500 to 2,000 trees on eight and a half bighas. Besides lemons, he raises grafted saplings and supplies them to other parts of the country.
His trees are a local kagzi hybrid, seedless and fragrant, and they fruit year-round. In Falgun, Chaitra and Baishakh (roughly February to May), when lemons are scarce in the market, his orchard bears heavily, so he gets good prices at the time of shortage.
Seedless lemon farming is spreading in other upazilas of Jashore too. According to the agriculture department, it now covers 160 hectares across the district's eight upazilas.
Bagherpara upazila agriculture officer Saiyeda Nasrin Jahan said seedless lemon is a high-value crop rich in vitamin C and that its cultivation is growing by the day.
Choosing a variety that bears in the months when lemons are short is where the profit lies, and selling grafted saplings adds a second income. The report is by Krishi Shomoy's Jashore correspondent.
Photo: Jeevan Jose / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: Krishi Shomoy
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