10 kg sweet potato!

Local industrialist Kamal Ahmed brought this amazing vegetable from Australia last year and cultivated in his land in Ashuganj.

As this became known, farmers are now scrambling to collect the stem of the vegetable for cultivation this winter. They said this will open a new dimension in potato cultivation in the country.

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It grows well in the soil here. Kamal said he cultivated this potato variety on three bighas of land at his Shuhagpur village in Ashuganj and got an yield of about 250 maunds. The yield was less as he sparsely sowed the stems. The yield will be at least double if grown in a planned way, he said.

At first farmers ignored when I planted the steps. But as harvesting time approached, they could not believe it. Scores of people caame from far away places to see the filed.

Some of the bigger size potatoes were around 11 kilograms.

It does not need any special care. It can be grown in the way farmers cultivate our local varieties of sweet potato, he said. The alluvial soil of Ashuganj has proved suitable for this crop, he said. A farmer can easily get an yield at least 15 times they get from local varieties, Kamal said.

Farmer Md Parves Khan said he took some stems from Kamal last year and planted those in his lands. He also got a good production.

While visiting Kasmal's house recently, this correspondent saw the giant potatoes harvested last year and stored in a room started growing stems. The stems were being processed for plantation this year.

Kamal has also some other high yielding varieties of mango, jambura (citrus) and banana, which he pans to grow in large scale.