Research Article
Profitability of Cabbage Production as Main and Ratoon Crop
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A. M. Farooque
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M. Robiul Alam
Not Available
M. Akhtar Hossain
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F. Islam
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M. S.H . Molla
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Cabbage (Brassica oleracea var capitata L.) is an important member of the cole crops and belongs to the family Brassicaceae. It is one of the most popular leafy vegetables and extensively grown in Bangladesh mainly in winter months. As vegetable cabbage has high nutritive value as well as high market demand. In Bangladesh about 10000 ha of land is under cultivation with annual production 107000 metric tons (Anonymous, 1998). The average yield of cabbage is very low (10.25 t ha-1) in Bangladesh compared to that of many other developed countries of the world (Anonymous, 1999). In economic point of view, significantly higher yield (73.44 t ha-1) of cabbage and more profit (1796 MRR) was found when organic manures applied in combination with mineral fertilizers (Farid et al., 1998).
Very little information is available on economic return of cabbage cultivation. Due to absence of information the policy makers also can not adopt appropriate policy regarding its extension and development. Considering the above facts, the study was therefore, undertaken to estimate the costs and returns from cabbage cultivation as main and ratoon crop.
The experiment was conducted at the Horticulture Farm of Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), Mymensingh during November 1999 to April 2000. The soil of the experimental area was silty loam, medium high land belonging to the Agro-Ecological Zone-9 (AEZ-9), which was originated from Old Brahmaputra deposits, having non-calcareous dark grey flood plain soil (Anonymous, 1988). The variety of cabbage was K-K Cross (developed by T. Sakata Corporation, Japan). There were twelve treatments taking i.e., T1, cowdung (CD); T2, mustard oil cake (MOC); T3, poultry manure (PM) and T4, NPK fertilizer in various combinations. The doses for nutrients were N130 P28 K108 kg ha-1 (Anonymous, 1997) from urea, TSP and MP, respectively. Cowdung, mustard oil cake and poultry manure were used at the rate of 15, 2.6 and 8.5 t ha-1, respectively. The entire quantity of cowdung, mustard oil cake, poultry manure, TSP and half of MP were applied during final land preparation. The total amount of urea and rest half of MP were applied in three equal installments at 15, 30 and 45 days after transplanting in the specific (T4, T7, T8, T9, T10 and T11 ) plots but T0, control plots received no manure or fertilizer.
For production of ratoon crop of cabbage, three additional top dressing were done with only half of N of recommended dose of N130 kg ha-1 i.e., N65 kg ha-1 at 7, 21 and 35 days after harvesting of the main crop. Each top dressing was followed by irrigation. Twenty five day old healthy and uniform sized seedlings were transplanted in the experimental plots on 20 November, 1999 maintaining a spacing of 60x50 cm2 accommodating 30 plants in each unit plot. The unit plot size was 3x3 m2. Irrigation, earthing up, pest management and weeding were done as and when required. The main crop was harvested during 8-15th February, 2000. The heads of main crop was cut with a sharp knife leaving two loose leaves at the base of the stump for the production of ratoon crop. Ratoon crop was harvested during the period from 5-13th April, 2000.
Information relative inputs use as well as return was collected on plot basis, then converted into per hectare and were done according to the procedure of Alam et al. (1989). Interest on inputs cost was calculated on the basis of commercial bank rate. In this study, however, land rental value was for the period from planting of seedlings to harvesting of the ratoon crop.
Results and Discussion
Cabbage is a labor intensive crop, which required a number of man day per hectare from transplanting to harvesting. Moreover, it required more labor for production of ratoon crop. All the labors were hired and distributed in different operations among the treatments and counted in Taka.
Table 1: | Production cost of cabbage per hectare due to use of inorganic fertilizers, organic manure and its combination |
A. Material cost (Tk) | |
B. Material cost (Tk) | |
C. Over head cost (Tk) | |
Table 2: | Production cost of ratoon crop of cabbage per hectare (Tk) and benefit cost ratio |
Table 3: | Total benefit cost ratio of main and ratoon crop of cabbage |
Material, non-material and over head costs including harvesting of the crop were recorded for all the treatments and calculated on per hectare basis (Table 1). The total cost of production ranged between Tk. 39730.00 to Tk. 64196.00 ha-1 for main crop (Table 1 C). Cost of seed, bamboo and chatai (made by bamboo), irrigation, pesticides, seed bed preparation, layout transplanting shading, harvesting and marketing and land rent Tk ha-1 were remained same in main crop cultivation. Among the treatments, the variation was due to the cost of different fertilizer and manures (Table 1 A, B). The total production cost was the lowest (Tk. 39730.00 ha-1) for the control plot and the highest (Tk. 64196.00 ha-1) for mustard oil cake (T2) treated plots. The gross return from different treatments ranged between Tk. 46050.00 to Tk.142925.00 ha-1 for main crop (Table 1C). The production cost of ratoon crop Tk. 12487 ha-1 fixed in all treatments due to use of same imputes and cultural operation (Table 2). Gross return was the total income through sale of cabbage marketable yield @ Tk. 2500/t and Tk. 2000/t for main and ratoon crop respectively. The highest net return (Tk. 91648.00) was obtained from T11 treatment followed (Tk. 83335.00) by T8 treatment (Table 1C). While the lowest net return (Tk. 6320.00) was found from the control treatments. This result is in agreement with the finding of Farid et al. (1998) who reported that economically more profit was found when organic and inorganic fertilizer were applied together in cabbage cultivation. The benefit cost ratio was found to be the highest (2.79) in treatment T11. The second and third highest benefit cost ratio (2.61 and 2.57) was found in T9 and T4 treatment respectively, while the lowest (1.16) benefit cost ratio was recorded from the control in main crop. On the other hand, the highest gross and net return (Tk.38440/ and Tk. 25953/-) was obtained in the T11 treatment and the lowest (Tk. 23560/- and Tk. 11073/-) was recorded from the control, T0 (Table 2). The benefit cost ratio also the highest (3.08) was recorded in T11 and the lowest (1.89) was obtained from the control (T0) treatment of ratoon crop of cabbage. In case of total benefit cost ratio of main and ratoon crop of cabbage the highest benefit cost ratio (2.84) was obtained from T11 treatment (Table 3). The second and third highest benefit cost ratio (2.61 and 2.59) was obtained from T9 and T4 treatments respectively. Benefit cost ratio was the lowest (1.33) in control (To) treatment.
From the economic point of view, the above result indicated that treatment T11 i.e., 1/4 (cowdung+mustard oil cake+poultry manure+NPK) was more profitable than other treatments for the main as well as ratoon crop of cabbage.
From the study, it is apparent that among the different fertilizer management practices, the T11 treatment showed the best performance (57.17 t ha-1) for main as well as ratoon crop (19.22 t ha-1) of cabbage. The second best results (55.69 t ha-1) was observed in ½ (MOC+NPK) (T8) for main crop and treatment ½ (Cd+MOC) (T5) for ratoon crop including yield of 18.64t ha-1. But cost of production was comparatively higher.
Therefore, among the 12 treatments the combined application of 1/4(Cd+MOC+PM+NPK) may be suggested for the production of main and application of half the said amount for ratoon crop of cabbage.