BINA Sofeda-1: nuclear agriculture institute releases large-fruited sapodilla

The Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA) has released a new sapodilla variety, BINA Sofeda-1, Jagonews24's Bangladesh Agricultural University correspondent reported on 28 June 2026. Following BINA's lemon varieties, it aims, researchers said, to widen the country's range of fruit varieties and give farmers a profitable alternative. Each fruit weighs 250 to 450 grams, much more than local sapodilla.

BINA is part of Bangladesh's national agricultural research system under the Ministry of Agriculture. According to Banglapedia, it has been based on the Bangladesh Agricultural University campus in Mymensingh since 1975, uses nuclear techniques to breed new crop varieties and has its own gamma radiation source. Inducing mutations with radiation or chemicals and selecting plants with useful traits, such as larger or sweeter fruit, is known as mutation breeding.

Citing BINA, Jagonews24 reported that in 2019 scientists exposed scions (grafting shoots) of the BARI Sofeda-2 variety to gamma rays and grafted them onto khirni seedlings. The successful grafts yielded a mutant, MZD60P1; after satisfactory breeding trials and yield tests around the country, it was selected, and in 2023 the National Seed Board registered it as BINA Sofeda-1 for cultivation by farmers. A Bangla Tribune report of November 2024, also citing BINA, gave 2016 as the year the research began and said the scions were treated with gamma rays and the chemical EMS, from which two mutants were identified.

Khirni (Manilkara hexandra) is a relative of the sapodilla that grows in Bangladesh, India and neighbouring countries and is used as a rootstock for grafted sapodilla.

Dr Md Shamsul Alam, the senior scientific officer in BINA's horticulture division who led the variety's development, told Jagonews24 that sapodilla is little known in Bangladesh but very tasty and can be grown with little care. He said the fruit contains carbohydrates, natural sugar, vitamin C and antioxidants. Sapodilla is native to southern Mexico and Central America and is now grown across tropical Asia, including Bangladesh.

According to BINA and its scientist, the variety's main traits are:

• Each fruit weighs 250 to 450 grams; Dr Alam told Bangla Tribune that the sapodilla now on the market weighs at most 100 to 150 grams.
• Vitamin C content is 15.58 milligrams per 100 grams of fruit.
• The seeds are very small, averaging four grams, and 75 to 90 percent of the fruit is edible.
• With proper care, the yield is 25 to 40 tonnes per hectare.
• A tree one and a half years old bears two to five kilograms of fruit; the main fruiting season is January to March.

Dr Alam said sapodilla adapts to a wide range of conditions; humid weather suits it best at flowering, and as a year-round variety it can be planted at any time of year. Fertile loam of medium pH with irrigation and drainage is ideal, and he told Bangla Tribune that sandy loam also suits it. It can be grown commercially in both hill and plain areas. The tree tolerates waterlogging poorly, but in the dry season it can be grown with two or three irrigations.

Vegetative propagation, that is grafting, is now the usual way to raise seedlings, and grafted plants bear fruit within 18 months. According to Bangla Tribune, grafts planted between March and September flower between September and November of the following year, and the fruit can be picked from January to April.

The scientists said BINA Sofeda-1 suffers much less disease than other varieties. It can, however, be affected by dieback and sooty mould, for which Dr Alam advised spraying a copper-based fungicide twice a year. The report gave no dose, so growers should ask their upazila agriculture officer before spraying. Stem borers, leaf miners and aphids are also often seen on the trees; leaves carrying eggs and larvae should be collected and buried.

Dr Mohammad Nurun-Nabi Mazumder, head of BINA's horticulture division, told Jagonews24 that the division, started in 2011, works on both local and foreign varieties, that BINA Lemon-1 and BINA Lemon-2 have been well received, and that he expected BINA Sofeda to draw the same response.

Photo: Sm faysal / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, Bangla Tribune, Banglapedia, Wikipedia (sapodilla, khirni and mutation breeding)