Mustard grown without tillage by the relay method on 3 hectares in Bangalhaola village of Kaliganj municipality, Gazipur, has shown new promise. Because farmers are interested, the agriculture office believes mustard cultivation by this method will increase in future.

According to the agriculture office, farmers in Bangalhaola began growing mustard by sowing seed without tillage, using the relay method, on 2 hectares while transplanted Aman rice was still standing in the fields. In this method, one crop is sown without tillage while another is still in the field, which greatly reduces cost and labour. Mustard with rice is one of the most common combinations. It is one of the main ways to grow three crops a year on land that usually produces two.

Farmers in the village, Md Faruk, Pushparani, Abdul Mannan and Purnima Rani Das, said their land used to lie fallow. Now, with the agriculture office's advice and help, they have sown mustard by the relay method without tillage, and it needs no extra fertiliser.

Md Chharowar Jahan Hiro, sub-assistant agriculture officer for the Kaliganj municipality block, said: "Farmers were informed about relay cropping, and they accepted the proposal very easily. We encouraged them to grow mustard by the relay method in the period after the Aman rice when the land lies fallow."

He said: "Because they adopted the relay method at the right time, their costs were much lower. And with favourable weather, a good crop has been assured. Besides harvesting on time, no time will be wasted for Boro cultivation; farmers will be able to plant Boro on time too."

Upazila agriculture officer Farzana Taslim, an agriculturist, said: "Ten to 15 days before transplanted Aman rice is harvested, mustard is broadcast on land that has no workable moisture or standing water but is still muddy. That is essentially the relay method."

She said: "By this method, one bigha needs 1 kg of mustard seed. If mustard is grown at the right time this way, Boro rice can also be planted on time. Through relay cultivation, farmers are getting three crops a year instead of two without extra cost."

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.