BAU Germplasm Centre: A shrine for research on fruits

BAU Correspondent:

The centre is the second largest of its kind, the largest being Miami Germplasm Centre in Florida in the United States of America

The Germplasm Centre at the Bangladesh Agriculture University (BAU) has so far released more than 70 varieties of fruit as scientists work incessantly to bring about a ‘fruit revolution’ in the country.

The Centre was set up in 1991 at the university under a ‘Fruit Tree Improvement Project’ with financial aid from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA). Professor Dr M A Rahim, an eminent scientist of the Horticulture department of BAU heads the Germplasm Centre as its Director since its establishment.

The centre is the second largest of its kind, the largest being Miami Germplasm Centre in Florida in the United States of America.

Among the huge collection of rare fruit trees, there are almost 11,245 mother trees of 688 varieties of 175 fruit species in the centre under four categories, viz domestic major and minor fruits (including endangered fruits), foreign and medicinal fruits.

The country’s popular BAU-Kul is one of the species that was developed at the centre. Other registered fruits released from the centre were about 17 varieties of mango, 10 varities of guava, five varities of lime, four varities of lychee, three varieties of kul, carambola (kamranga), wax apple (jamrul), dragon fruit, lemon and sofeda (sapodilla), two varieties of longan (lakta) and tamarind, and one variety of olive, amlaki, lotkan, fig, malta, wood apple (kadbel), country gooseberry (orboroi), strawberry, almond, jackfruit, plum and rambutan.

The centre has also released three varieties of garlic, two of carrots, one of sweet pumpkin and six varieties of potato, Germplasm sources said.

Germplasm Centre has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with many government institutions, NGOs and foreign institutions to spread the technology as well develop fruit trees for the root level farmers and nurseries.

It offers training to nursery cultivators, farmers and NGO workers to improve their skills in commercial fruit cultivation in the country. Superior quality saplings are sold to people at cheap rate to spread these fruit varieties across the country.

US Ambassador to Bangladesh, Dan W Mozena visited the Germplasm Centre on July 17, 2012 and expressed his satisfaction over its development work.

Talking to the Dhaka Tribune about the foundation of Asia’s largest Germplasm Centre, its Director Prof Rahim said that he started research on fruits from the inception of his teaching career at BAU. He has brought rare varieties of fruit-seeds from the various countries he had visited and tried to grow them at the Germplasm Centre. He also collected many local fruit varieties including endangered ones for research, development and conservation in the ‘live fruit museum.’

They were able to release the 70 fruit varieties and a few varieties of vegetable so far as a number of students.

Source: DhakaTribune

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