Wheat grass enlisted as cheap, quality fodder in Pirojpur

It's easy enough to get sidetracked on Youtube. About a month ago, when farmer Alamgir Hossain, 55, from Pirojpur town, was hoping to find a video about turkey-rearing, a video about producing fodder from wheat seeds caught his eye. He decided to try it.“The video showed wheat grass growing inside air-conditioned houses. It was surely costly,” he recalls.

As the owner of eight cows, Alamgir wondered if growing wheat grass in the open wouldn't also do. “In our home village farmers already produce grass from paddy. I bought ten kilograms of wheat seeds as an experiment,” he says. For Alamgir, cattle-rearing is an ancestral business. Previously the family specialised in producing oxen to pull ploughs.

Since 2000 his farm in Kumimara village, six kilometres from Pirojpur town, has primarily operated as a small dairy. He also raises turkeys, chickens and fish. “Wheat grass is useful,” he says of his experiment. “It is better fodder than paddy straw or the usual grass varieties.”

Pirojpur Sadar Upazila Veterinary Surgeon Dr Suvankar Datta agrees. “Grass grown from wheat seeds is more nutritious for livestock than other grasses,” he says. “Dairy cows given a diet of wheat grass produce more and higher quality milk. It's not a technique that is popular yet in Pirojpur, but wheat grass is easy enough to grow.”

He grows the grass cheaply, first in plastic trays, then in the open under a simple polythene roof. As wheat grass tastes slightly sweet, the turkeys and even the fish also enjoy it. Alamgir estimates he needs eight kilograms of fodder per day for his cows. One kilogram of wheat seeds will produce around seven kilograms on fodder; at Tk 25 per kilogram, wheat seeds are not expensive.

To get the most from his seeds, Alamgir first dries them in the sun to remove moisture. Then he cools them in the shade for an hour. After soaking them for around four hours thereafter, the seeds are ready to sprout. For the next twelve hours he keeps the seeds in a plastic tray with good drainage, covered by a sack. Then the seeds are introduced to a few inches of soil, while being covered for a further twelve hours. Finally the grass crop is on its way.

“I do need to water the crop three times daily,” he says, adding that he doesn't use fertiliser. Each crop of fodder takes a week to be ready.

“I want to buy some more cows,” Alamgir remarks, “and increase grass production.” He says that several neighbours have already been to see him to know more about his novel fodder farming endeavour.