Rajshahi University Researchers Grow Honey Queen Pineapple From Crown Tissue

Researchers in the Department of Agronomy and Agricultural Extension at the University of Rajshahi (RU) succeeded in growing Honey Queen pineapples by the crown tissue method. Jagonews24 reported on 20 May 2026 that the ripe fruit had been harvested the day before, 19 May, at the university's Agro Technology Lab. As part of the research of two MSc students and one PhD student, plantlets were raised from tissue and grown on into full plants.

Dr Md Gias Uddin, a teacher in the department, told Jagonews24: "We have a tissue culture unit and a net house at the Agro Technology Lab. We carried out tissue culture from a mother plant of the Honey Queen variety and are maintaining it here." The germplasm was then in its second year, he said: three pineapples were harvested the year before and 21 that year.

Describing the steps, he said the work starts from tissue of the small crown inside the pineapple, one to one and a half centimetres in size. Regeneration then happens both directly and indirectly, and one piece yields 50 to 100 very small plantlets. Once they grow a little, they are moved to separate pots. He also spoke of raising plantlets from suckers.

The plants sit in a drip irrigation tunnel and take water and nutrients from a pipe through self-watering strips. According to Dr Gias Uddin, the pineapple can be grown on arable land, on rooftop gardens or anywhere in Bangladesh, and does not need much care.

Honey Queen is also known locally as Joldubi. A study of Bangladeshi pineapple farmers published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems in August 2024 found the Honey Queen superior to the country's other varieties in nutritional content and sweetness. The study named Madhupur in Tangail and Sreemangal in Moulvibazar as the main pineapple areas, with the fruit also grown in Rangamati, Khagrachari, Bandarban, Mymensingh, Gazipur and Chattogram.

The Dhaka Tribune reported in February 2026 that pineapple was grown on 2,537 hectares in Rangamati district in the 2024-25 fiscal year, and that the district's Naniarchar upazila is known as the "pineapple capital". The Honey Queen's traditional season runs from April to June.

Dr Gias Uddin said pineapple in Bangladesh is grown mainly in hilly areas with high rainfall and low soil pH. "If we can maintain the soil pH and keep the conditions right, pineapple can be grown everywhere in Bangladesh," he said, adding that once the research was finished the team would seek support from the authorities concerned to commercialise it.

The pineapple (Ananas comosus) belongs to the bromeliad family, Bromeliaceae; its wild ancestor comes from the Paraná-Paraguay river basins of southern Brazil and Paraguay. Julia Morton's Fruits of Warm Climates, published online by Purdue University's NewCROP programme, says soil pH for pineapple should be within 4.5 to 6.5, and that crowns, slips, suckers and ratoons are all used to propagate the plant.

After visiting the lab, the university's pro-vice-chancellor (academic), Professor Dr Md Farid Uddin Khan, said: "This pineapple is fully organic, with no harmful germs and no effect of unsafe farming. Because it is produced in a controlled environment, its taste is also exceptional." If such pineapples could be grown commercially, he said, there would be opportunities to export them as well.

The University of Rajshahi was founded in 1953 at Motihar in Rajshahi. Its Faculty of Agriculture was formed in 2000, when a local agricultural college was absorbed into the university; the Department of Agronomy and Agricultural Extension belongs to that faculty.

Photo: Mashkawat.ahsan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, Dhaka Tribune, Purdue University (Julia Morton, Fruits of Warm Climates), Wikipedia