Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is an important vegetable that plays a vital role in global food and nutritional security and alleviation of poverty, especially in Bangladesh. Although, the soil and climatic conditions of Bangladesh are favourable for potato cultivation, every year production is hampered due to use of low quality seeds. Seed potato industry is developing in Bangladesh. However, only 5-10% quality seeds are being produced and used by the potato farmers. Quality seeds alone can contribute to increased yield by 15-20%. Both public and private sectors together supply only 5% quality seed potato and the rest 95% is almost of low quality produced by the farmers themselves. In prioritizing different issues of agriculture, challenges of production and supply of quality seed to the farmers should be considered as a top priority issue. For increasing quality seeds, the whole seed system needs to be reviewed. The present work was an attempt to review the seed potato production systems, supply system and also to identify the possible challenges and policy implications in regards of the problems on seed potato in Bangladesh.

Studies were conducted in the field to determine the effectiveness of three insectidicdes, Metasystox-R 25EC, Dimethion 40 EC, and Fentro 50 EC applied against mustard aphid, Lipaphis erysimi Kalt. and measure their toxic action on the predator Coccinella septempunctata L. The mustard plants were sprayed with the insecticides at 0.05% and 0.025% a. i. at 50 and 70 days after sowing. The mortality of both mustard aphid and the predator was assessed at 1, 4, and 7 days after first and second spraying of insecticides. Metasystox-R showed the most effectiveness among the three insecticides causing the highest mortality of mustard aphid followed by Dimethion and Fentro. But the lowest mortality of Coccinella septempunctata was obtained in Dimethion treated plot, and Fentro treated plot showed the highest mortality indicating that the Dimethion was less toxic and Fentro was more toxic to the predator.

For any crop improvement program, it is imperative to assess the grain yield progress of the existing crop varieties to find the further avenue to out yield the existing superior ones. Therefore, an experiment was conducted at the Agronomy Field Laboratory, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh from July to December 2013 to find out the genetic variation for grain yield and their associated traits of transplant Aman rice varieties. The experiment consisted of 11 varieties viz. Bashiraj, Binadhan-7, BR10, BR11, BR22, BR23, BRRIdhan32, BRRIdhan39, BRRIdhan49, BRRIdhan57 and IR64. The high yielding Bangladeshi varieties were selected based on their releasing year with a local and one exotic T. Aman rice varieties. Among the varieties, BR10 produced the highest grain yield (3.83 t ha-1). Binadhan-7 rice variety recorded the highest chlorophyll content (39.93 SPAD value) at 29DAT, (44 SPAD value) at 39 DAT and (47.30 SPAD value) at 49 DAT. The highest phenotypic (1491.81) and genotypic (1147.26) variances and genetic advance (61.19) were obtained from spikelets panicle-1 and this parameter had greater ability to increase yield. Among the traits, the highest heritability was recorded by effective tillers hill-1 (87.91%) which influenced the grain yield. Therefore, it may be concluded that the variety BR10 of transplant Aman rice produced maximum grain yield, spikelets panicle-1, showed high phenotypic and genotypic variances and genetic advance. Bashiraj, BRRIdhan49 and BRRIdhan57 also can be considered as planting materials as their yield performance is close to BR 10. Therefore, the findings of the present study will help the breeders for further yield improvement of rice.Res. Agric., Livest. Fish.2(2): 207-213, August 2015

An Experiment was conducted in the laboratory of the Division of Entomology, Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA), Mymensingh to evaluate the efficacy of four indigenous plants parts such as leaves of raintree (Albizia saman), riot lata (Mikania micrantha), pithraj (Aphanamixis polystachya) and seeds of mahogani (Swietenia macrophylla) with methanol extracts at the rates of 10.0, 7.5, 5.0 and 2.5% for their direct toxicity against the pulse beetle, Callosobruchus chinensis (L.). Among the four plants extracts tested, pithraj leaf showed the highest (52.28%) mean repellency effect followed by riot lata (Mikania) leaf extract (46.07%), mahogani seed extract (38.79%) and raintree leaf extract (25.13%). On the basis of mean repellency rate, it was found that mahogany seed, pithraj leaf and riot lata (Mikania) leaf extracts were in the same repellency class i.e. Class Ill and except raintree leaf (Class II).

Experiments were conducted in the laboratory of the Division of Entomology, Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA), Mymensingh to evaluate the efficacy of four indigenous plants parts such as leaves of raintree (Albizia saman), riot lata (Mikania micrantha), pithraj (Aphanamixis polystachya) and seeds of mahogani (Swietenia macrophylla) with methanol extracts at the rates of 10.0, 7.5, 5.0 and 2.5% for their direct toxicity against the pulse beetle, Callosobruchus chinensis (L.). The experiments were set up following Completely Randomized Design (CRD). The results showed that extracts of all the plant parts had very close efficacy in relation to direct toxicity effect and grain protection values. Pithraj leaf extract showed the highest mortality (96.66%) action and raintree leaf extract showed the lowest (80.33%) with 10% extract at 5 DAT. The effectiveness of all the plant extracts were found to increase with the increase of doses and decreased proportionatelly with the increase of time