On the surface, rows of palm trees can be seen across the garden. From a distance, each plant looks like a shrub due to its spreading one to one and a half foot long leaves. When you get close, you can see that each tree has a bunch of dates behind the leaves. This garden of Saudi dates is in Mirzapur village of Shibganj Upazila Daipukuria Union of Chapainawabganj. There are at least 11 varieties of palm trees in the garden. Apart from date palm cultivation, he has also developed a nursery for date saplings. Named Swapna Chowa Nursery.Date palm farmer Mosharof Hossain said, first watch date palm cultivation on YouTube. I couldn’t hold my mind anymore when I saw the date palms on the tree. Then we collect seeds and start gardening. We started with 1350 trees in 2019. That year 310 trees in my garden yielded dates. Currently, I have 150 trees hanging in bunches of date palms in my garden.Highlighting the difficult period at the beginning of palm cultivation, he said, I was bribed by my family because of palm cultivation. Everyone used to make fun of me for growing dates. But I knew for sure that it is possible to grow dates in the soil of Bangladesh. Even date cultivation is possible in 64 districts of Bangladesh. Because of that I never stopped and continue to work tirelessly till now. Besides, in 2022, when I brought the people of the area to show them dates, some would believe and some would not. Some used to laugh at that time. But some people used to come to my garden and eat dates and tell everyone else. Now people respect me. It is a respected fruit and now I get a lot of respect from this fruit. Now I have had great success growing dates along with mangoes.This date palm farmer Mosharraf Hossain also said that he sold the dates all over the country through couriers. Someone else came to the garden and took the dates they liked. Most dates are sold from orchards. He also said that there is no difference in taste and sweetness between dates grown in Saudi Arabia and dates grown there.Regarding the care of palm trees, he said, many people are disappointed with the care of palm trees. But the maintenance of this palm tree is not that much. I apply organic fertilizers twice before and after winter and spray the plants once a month. Palm trees are not much attacked by insects. But there is an insect called rhinoceros beetle that eats the roots of trees. Then the tree dies. Preventing insect attack by applying insecticide before that will save the plant.Palash Sarkar, deputy director of Department of Agriculture Extension, Chapainawabganj district, said that Mosharraf Hossain started cultivating other varieties of dates including Maryam and Ajua from Saudi Arabia as a hobby. Last year too his trees produced good dates and this year too he has about 150 dates. In the current year there is a possibility of 700 to 800 kg of dates from his trees. Besides, visitors come to his garden to see the date palm garden and buy dates from his garden.He also said that there is water problem in Chapainawabganj region. And palm cultivation requires less water. Therefore, expansion of this type of cultivation, which requires less water, can be profitable. Moreover, we import large quantities of dates. If we can meet even a part of the country’s demand for dates through cultivation, then our foreign exchange that goes out will not go away. Besides, we can successfully produce dates in our country. Because he has been able to make the varieties that are known all over the world. We hope that seeing farmer Bhai Mosharof Hossain will inspire more entrepreneurs and expand this farming.
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