Farmer Belayet Hossain of Nateshwar village under Malkhannagar union planted the red ‘Sindhi’ variety of sweet potato on cropland that he filled with river sand and harvested the crop after six months last Wednesday when he came across the remarkable discovery.
Weighing in at a whopping 7.7kg, if verified it would dwarf the current record held by British farmer Peter Glazebrook, whose name is in the books for having grown the world’s largest sweet potato in 2010 that weighed just 3.76kg - less than half of Belayet’s one.
“As far I know, the biggest sweet potato grown in the country till now would have been 1-1.5kg. No sweet potato that big (as Belayet’s) is known to grow here,” said Subodh Chandra Roy, an officer of the local Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE).
Subodh, however, preferred to let the scientific officers of DAE describe some of the more technical aspects more elaborately, he added.
Meanwhile, Belayet Hossain’s home in Nateshwar witnessed a constant flow of visitors from different areas of the country throughout the day again on Thursday, all excited to catch a glimpse of the giant potato.
At that size, it would be hard to miss.