Engr. produces sweet mangoes in Guimaras
Get a copy of the June issue of Agriculture magazine which is now off the press and read about the engineer who produces big and sweet mangoes in Guimaras. He is Albert G. Teruel who works for a five-star resort hotel in Metro Manila but who decided to rehabilitate his centuries-old mango trees in his hometown of Nueva Valencia in Guimaras.
By using new appropriate technologies, he has been able to more than double the usual yield of the old mango trees. Among the practices he has adopted to make the trees productive are the use of an organic fungicide (Nordox 75), Agroblen (a slow release fertilizer) and Peters foliar fertilizer which strengthens the flowers and prevents premature falling of the fruits. Teruel also uses Mightybio or processed calcium nitrate as base fertilizer.
PROCESSED HOT CHILLI – You will also read how you can more than double the value of fresh hot pepper by processing the same into hot chilli flakes just like what Jess Domingo of Alfonso Lista in Ifugao has been doing. Every kilo of fresh hot chilli fruits can be processed into hot chilli flakes worth at least R400.
The advice of Jess Domingo is that when choosing a crop to grow, it is best to plant something that you can process for added value like hot chilli when prices go down. He observes that most pinakbet type vegetables have erratic prices. Sometimes they fetch a high price but many times, when production is plentiful, the price tumbles down. The problem is that most farmers don’t know how to process pinakbet type vegetables into products of higher value.
Domingo says that a hectare of hot pepper can produce a net profit of R1 million in a production cycle of 9 months if the fruits are processed. He estimates that each plant of the Red Hot variety can produce 1.5 kilos of fresh fruits during its productive life. That’s equivalent to R600 worth of hot pepper flakes when processed.
MONEY IN SEEDLINGS – In the June issue you will also read about a man who grosses R60,000 to R120,000 a month from a land no bigger than a basketball court in Candaba, Pampanga.
The fellow is Roland Aga who produces seedlings of papaya and other crops for sale to other farmers. His favorite is Red Lady papaya seedlings which he sells at R35 apiece. Sometimes he can produce 3,500 seedlings of this variety per month.
MECHANIZATION ADVOCATE – You will also meet an engineer who is a farm mechanization advocate in the June issue. He is Romeo S. Vasquez of San Mateo, Isabela who farms together with his son Arjay. The two are sold to the idea of using rice transplanters, combine harvesters and other farm machines. As per the story by Milagros B. Gonzalez, Vasquez and his son got a 260-cavan increase worth R260,000 from the use of a transplanter in their 10-hectare rice farm. That practically paid for the cost of the transplanter.
Now, the Vasquezes own five transplanters which are also used to service the needs of other rice farmers. In addition they have two combine harvesters, two tractors, one mini tractor, 1 weeder and two threshers. One thresher is used as soil pulverizer while the other is used as seed cleaner.
HEAT STRESS IN PIGS – You will also read about how heat stress can affect the health of pigs. Hogs subjected to high ambient temperature and humidity suffer from heat stress and this can result in poor sow performance, reduced and inconsistent growth, decreased carcass quality, mortality, morbidity and meat processing issues caused by less rigid fat, also known as flimsy fat.
Of course, the article will tell you how to address the heat stress problem in your piggery.
Agriculture magazine is the most widely circulated agricultural publication in the country. It is available in bookstores and outlets of Manila Bulletin nationwide.