Contract research project on studies on the horticultural maturity induces of some high value Asian vegetables for export

Abstract

Vegetable are playing an important role in the economy of Bangladesh. But in spite of their importance, vegetables are not getting their legitimate share particularly in the field of research. It is more true in case of country vegetable ( also called Asian vegetables). These vegetables are getting least priority in research although their demand in European countries and in the Middle East in increasing very rapidly. However, the exporters are facing problems as regards quality of the vegetables which is the main prerequisite factor for export. Neither the exporters nor the growers have clear and definite idea about the export quality of the vegetables due to lack of technology which was supposed to be developed by the researchers. With a view to solving these problems the project was undertaken to determine the commercial maturity indices of 9 Asian vegetables for different qualities required in case of export to different countries. The project was approved for 21 months with a total amount of Tk. 10.43 lakhs. The vegetables under study were bottle gourd, bitter gourd, ash gourd, snake gourd, ridged gourd, sponge gourd, okra, yard long bean and hyacinth bean. The experiments were conducted at 3 locations: (1) Agriculture Research Station, Pahartali, Chittagong (2) Agro-diversity Complex- a private multidisciplinary Agricultural farm in Bhaluka Upazila under the district of Mymensingh and (3) Ashulia, Upazila Savar, District Dhaka; at this location, two farmers were selected to set up experiments in their land. During the project period, 18 experiments were conducted in total, out of a which 11 of them were conducted at Chittagong, 5at Agro-diversity and 2 at Ashulia. For determination of commercial maturity indices of the vegetables, flowers were tagged on the day of anthesis and the successful fruits were picked up according to schedule recording data on the different indices like number of fruit/plant, length, dia/breadth and weight of fruit, dry matter percent, texture (measured by the force needed to penetrate the fruits by penetrometer), crispiness, mean maturity index (MMI), length, dia/breadth and thickness of seeds, external and internal description of fruits etc. Based on the commercial maturity indices, grade-1 and grade-2 quality vegetables were determined where grade-1 types will be suitable for export to upstream market of European countries and grade-2 types will be suitable for ethnic markets of England and the Middle-East as well as for domestic supermarkets. However, experiments should be repeated in future for further precision of the indices. The commercial maturity indices of vegetable for grade-1 and grade-2 qualities are described crop wise.