Cost-effective, better yielding farming tool developed in Dinajpur
A man operating a Zero Tillage Drill in the field of Wheat Research Centre in Dinajpur. Photo: STAR
Zero Tillage Drill, a farming device developed with local materials at Wheat Research Centre (WRC) in Dinajpur, brings good prospect of better agricultural outputs at lower costs. Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BARI) and CIMMYT, a Mexico-based international maize and wheat research institute, jointly developed the device. Designed for planting rabi crops, Zero Tillage Drill is a cheap and easy to handle farming device and it helps yield 10 to 20 per cent more crops depending on the land, Jeff Esdaile, an agricultural consultant of Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, said. The new farming device is less time consuming and less costly than any traditional ploughing device, Jeff said, adding that Zero Tillage Drill digs about three to four cm topsoil of the cropland and plants preferred rabi seeds simultaneously on the same land. Developed with local materials at Wheat Research Centre (WRC) in Dinajpur, the power tiller-based device is being used on trial basis at the WRC complex. After the Aman harvesting, monga persists in the northern region from October to December when large areas of land remain uncultivated due to financial constraints of the farmers, the expert added. The Zero Tillage Drill farming device helps to plant rabi crops like, wheat, pulses, potato and tomato on about 20 hectares of land in three or four days and it helps better yields too, said Israil Hossain, Senior Scientific Officer of WRC, Dinajpur. WRC experts said if farmers use the new farming device soon after harvesting their crops, specially Aman, they would be able to plant seeds at their previous cropland with Tk 800 per hectare, while traditional ploughing costs Tk 2,500 to 3,000 for each hectare. Farming with Zero Tillage Drill will reduce the costs on fuel, fertiliser and labour as it automatically controls the ratio of seeds and fertilisers in the soil, they said. The device also helps improve soil health of the cropland by using the residue of previous crops that usually retains the rainwater in the cropland in dry seasons and can lead to higher crop yields, they added. Depending on its capacity, the device will cost Tk 20,000 to 25,000. Dr KC Roy, Director of Dinajpur Wheat Research Institute, along with local agricultural engineers of WRC, are jointly coordinating the research on Zero Tillage Drill programme in the northern region. Md Akhtaruzzaman Mondol, deputy director of Dinajpur Agriculture Extension Department, said Zero Tillage Drill will contribute to the development of agriculture as it will reduce the cost of rabi farming.
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