agriculture business : crops, aquaculture, livestock, poultry, entrepreneurs, and agrithing…
Although he joined the TCP 31ate, Martin Perez of Purok Kaunlaran, Agbannawag was one of the six participating farmers who produced at least 10 t/ha in the 2006 dry season.
Aside from being a latecomer, Mang Martin has attended only 17 of the 22 sessions of the farmers’ field school (FFS) in the 2006 wet season. No wonder why he only got 78 percent (39 out of 50 questions) in the post-test at the end of the FFS.
It’s no wonder then why seed growers diligently take care of their seeds, especially during storage when the seeds are most vulnerable to pests. From its end, the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), through its engineers led by Engr. Ricardo F. Orge, developed the admixture treatment machine (STM) and sealed storage enclosure for hybrid rice and other seeds (SACLOB).
Shooing pests with seed treatment
Admixture seed treatment is a method of treating and safeguarding the seeds from storage pests by combining the chemicals applied in the process. The STM is especially designed to optimize the use and efficiency of these chemicals by ensuring the application and absorption of the right amount of solution on the seeds.
Farmers tried to eradicate these pests which grow from 6 to 20 inches long, and burrow in the dikes of rice paddies by pounding the soil. This, however, did not work. And thus, many farmers have left Banaue which resulted in the abandonment of 30 percent of the terraces.
To preserve the rice terraces, the Ifugao State College of Agriculture and Forestry funded a laboratory study of these authors on the eradication of the giant earthworms.
Rice hull “ipa” used to be a big problem of ricemillers, especially in big rice producing areas such as Nueva Ecija and other Central Luzon provinces. It was usually considered a waste product that had to be thrown away. Thus, we used to see big piles of rice husk along the highway. There have been very limited uses for rice hull in the past.
Today, rice husk is becoming increasingly useful as new uses are being popularized. One product that is becoming increasingly popular is the carbonized rice hull, CRH for short. To produce CRH, raw rice hull is burned without air so that it will not turn into ash. CRH is sterile and is free from disease organisms. And that is the reason why Dr. Rene Sumaoang, a microbiologist, has been promoting CRH as an ideal litter for brooding chicks.
There are a number of benefits from using CRH for brooding chicks instead of the usual raw rice hull. Being sterile, CRH minimizes disease contamination. CRH readily absorbs the moisture in the manure so the litter does not get moist and not attractive to flies. When the litter is treated with an enzyme (Biosec) formulated by Dr. Sumaoang, the usual odor from the manure is eliminated. At the same time, the enzymes break down the nutrients found in the manure so that when brooding is over, the litter would have become an organic fertilizer that is ready to use on crops.
A rice grading test kit which is being finalized for adoption would benefit rice based food manufacturers and even ordinary consumers, the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) reports.
The test kit could determine the grain’s amylose and gelatin contents for its texture using staining technique. It was developed by Leslie T. Roferos, PhilRice senior science specialist and Bienvenido O. Juliano, senior consultant.
In their study titled Field Amylose and Gelatinization Temperature Tests for Rice Classification, Roferos and Juliano refined the rice classification test kit earlier developed by including test for both amylose and gelatinization temperature. The latter was aimed at enhancing the sensitivity of the field test in connection with the clustering of varieties to come out with the general classification.
Evelyn Bandonil, head of the rice chemistry and food science division of PhilRice, said Class A of the kit is for soft textured type, Class A for intermediate textured, and Class C for hard textured. These three general classifications in variety texture have came up after Roferos and Juliano discovered that the third and fourth in the four clusters of PSBINSIC Rc varieties belonged to the hard textured varieties.
First of all, these eight crosses between PSB Rc14 and Matatag lines are moderate non-shattering, have good grain quality, and are drought-tolerant.
Guialuson Datumanong of Datu Shariff in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Cotabato City who has been planting raelines since 2006, shares that despite of drought and saline problems, he has harvested 110 55-kilogram sacks per hectare from Raeline 3 or PR 33382-25-1-1B-B.
Like Datumanong, thirty-four-year-old Dennis Aguha is also very pleased with the performance of raclines for he has harvested more than 50 sacks at 42 to 45 kg per hectare despite of drought.
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The second edition of the book Rise with Rice written by this writer and published by PhilRice is now off the press. It was launched on November 5, 2007 during the 22nd anniversary celebration of PhilRice.
Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap was expected to grace the book launching ceremony but did not make it due to typhoon Kabayan. A copy of the book was presented to him the next day when he dropped by at PhilRice after testing the performance of the PhilRice-developed mini-combine rice harvester and after turning over flatbed rice dryers with rice hull-fed furnace to the rice clusters in Mabini, Sto. Domingo and Maragol, Munoz, Nueva Ecija.
The second edition is thicker than the first edition. The second book has 366 pages and consists of 58 stories on the successes of inbred and hybrid rice farmers as well as post production processors with full color photos.
When asked how he did it, forty-four year-old Ali Tomara said that he was able to obtain a high yield from Batugan or Tripoli, a native variety which produces slightly aromatic, soft rice, by adopting the new farming technologies he learned from the Farmers’ Field School (FFS). This was the major activity of the fourth Technical Cooperation
Project (TCP 4) of PhilRice and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) which was implemented by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries of the ARMM, local government units, Mindanao State University, and University of Southern Mindanao.
Ali is an experienced farmer; for years, he has been planting his 2-hectare farm with rice in the rainy season and with vegetables in the dry season. What’s good about him is that despite the knowledge he had from his many years of farming, he recognizes his limitations and compensates these by adopting new farm technologies he learned from seminars like the FFS.
The Cultivated Asian Rice(Oryza sativa L.) being a highly domesticated crop, has several major pathogens due to its long history of dependence on humans. Early breeding efforts during the green revolution focused more on grain yield because of pressing worldwide problem on poverty and population growth. In the past two or three decades, however, disease resistance has been included as one of the major objectives of breeding programs worldwide.
Last month, we tackled bacterial leaf blight, a disease caused by a bacterium and occurs frequently during the wet season. To continue with our series on major diseases in rice, we will discuss rice blast, a fungal disease common in aerobic and upland conditions.
ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE
Rice blast has been reported in at least 85 countries worldwide. In temperate countries, it is highly destructive in lowland rice, while in tropical countries like the Philippines, it primarily affects upland rice and lowland rice grown in aerobic and drought conditions. In India, more than 250,000 tons of rice are being lost annually, which is about 1.0 percent of the county’s yield. In Japan, the disease infects more than 850,000 hectares of ricefield.
One of those farmers is Segundino “Dino” Baura, a migrant from Bohol at age 19 and now resides in Hagonoy, Davao del Sur. Pure guts and diligence made him a successful farmer even as he had no land to start with in 1986. He rented 10 hectares at P500, payable after harvest, and planted it to sugarcane.
It was only in 1990 when he started to plant rice in I ha, which was mortgaged to him. After four years, he started to buy land, 0.75 ha to begin with. Today, he is already cultivating 11 ha, 5 ha of which are his own.
Dino said some farmers who mortgaged their land to him continuously asked for additional money until they could no longer pay their debt. Eventually, they sold their land to him.
