Crop cultivation in the coastal saline area of Bangladesh during rabi season is limited due to late harvest of Aman rice, shorter winter period, difficulty in tillage, soil salinity, lack of fresh irrigation water etc. Zero tillage potato cultivation with mulching could minimize these obstacles and thereby increase system productivity. However, selection of mulching material is crucial for higher yield and economic return. An experiment was conducted at coastal saline area of Bangladesh during rabi 2018–19 to observe zero tillage potato performance under different mulch materials. Three locally available mulch materials were employed in the trial viz. rice straw (T1), rice husk (T2) and compost (T3) as control. Additionally, treatment T1 and T2 also received same amount of compost as T3. Results from single factor randomized complete block design with three replications showed that leaf dry matter, leaf area index and number of tuber per plant did not varied significantly. Significantly highest stem and root dry matter were found from T1 (69.56 kg ha−1) and T3 (138.92 kg ha−1), respectively. Rice husk (T2) produced numerically highest leaf dry matter (372.74 kg ha−1) and significantly lowest root dry matter (87.92 kg ha−1), which ultimately produced highest tuber yield (13.99 t ha−1) followed by rice straw (T1) (11.08 t ha−1). However, weed growth was highest in rice husk (1.16 t ha−1). Mulch treatments conserved 3.5 to 7.45% more moisture and 4.3% less salinity than control. Between two mulches rice straw is suggested for its profitability since it remains unused and readily available.

An experiment was carried out at the Pulse Research Sub-Station (PRSS), Madaripur, Bangladesh during three consecutive years of 2008-2009, 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 to screen out the suitable high yielding chickpea varieties that are resistant to Botrytis Gray Mold (BGM) under artificial inoculated condition. Twenty four deshi chickpea lines/varieties collected from ICARDA, Syria along with one check variety BARIchhola-5 were used under this experiment. Plant debris and suspension of <italic>Botrytis cinerea</italic> inocula were applied at the flowering stage. The BGM disease severity of 25 chickpea genotypes showed wide range of disease reaction at flowering stage, pod formation stage and maturity stage. Finally three germplasms showed highly resistant (HR) reaction and 22 lines showed resistant (R) reaction to <italic>Botrytis cinerea</italic>.

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The major cropping pattern in the South-western coastal area of Bangladesh is transplanted aman rice followed by fallow during the rabi season (November to March) and kharif-I (April-July) season. Crop production during rabi season is limited due to various ecological factors including soil salinity, lack of fresh irrigation water, short winter period, late harvest of previous aman rice, heavy clay soil etc. Tomato is a popular winter crop in that area which is mainly cultivated around homestead and ridges of fish pond, where soil salinity and tillage is not a major problem. An attempt was taken to grow tomato in Khulna district of Bangladesh after T. Aman rice harvest during 2018–19 in order to investigate tomato performance at different mulch materials and Nitrogen sources. The two factors experiment was carried out in randomized complete block design with three replications. Mulch materials viz. rice straw (M1), black polythene (M2) and no mulch (M3) were employed as factor one and nitrogen source viz. prilled urea (N1) and urea super granule (N2) were assigned as factor two. Results showed that there was no interaction effect of mulch and nitrogen treatments. Single effect of mulch and nitrogen treatments showed that highest fruit yield was found from rice straw (M1) (17.32 t ha−1) and prilled urea (N2) (15.64 t ha−1), respectively. So, tomato can be grown with rice straw mulch along with prilled urea for higher economic return (MBCR 2.24).

In order to achieve optimal plant growth and production, essential nutrients must be readily available in adequate quantities and in a balanced proportion to give a good yield, especially cauliflower which has health benefits that may not be found in many other plants. For this purpose, this experiment was carried out during the seasons 2020-2021 in the on station of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, Khulna under Smallholder Agricultural competitiveness project. Although the treatments showed a positive effect on yield, quality and economics but, T1 revealed most significant influence on all parameters under study as compared to T0 (control). For micronutrients and hormone, T1 treatment produced the highest curd yield (29.99 t ha-1) and the lowest (17.04 t ha-1) was control from the varietal effect the highest curd yield was (35.14 t ha-1) from V4 (It Amazuku 33) and the lowest was (16.21 t ha-1) from V5 (BARI Fulcopi-1). In case of combined effect, the highest curd yield (45.16 t ha-1) was obtained from T1V4 and the lowest curd yield (10.27 t ha-1) from T0V1. Therefore, it can be suggested that the highest curd yield and good shape cauliflower curd can be obtained application of Zn 8.83 kg/ha, B 3.5 kg/ha, Ma 8.43 kg/ha and Flora (Hormone) 2 ml/1 L of water. Therefore, foliar application of micronutrients and hormone is suitable way to feed the cauliflower crop to enhance the marketable yield and quality.