Agriculture Business Week

The folks in Northwestern Luzon swear that age-old lore is often quite accurate in predicting the weather but they cannot explain why.

According to Evangeline Galacgac and Criselda Balisacan, researchers from the Mariano Marcos State University in Batac, Ilocos Norte, there is indeed a scientific basis to weather lore. In their study on weather lore which has earned for them national recognition, they found that the appearance of clouds, wind direction, humidity, and animal/insect behavior are among the atmospheric and astronomic indicators used by old folks.

For instance, old folks predict rain when the sky is red during sunrise. The researchers explained that a red sky in the morning is due to the sun shining through dust particles being pushed up by an approaching low pressure system, which brings in moisture. The rain would come when dense clouds in the form of mountains and huge towers are seen in the east or west at dawn.

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Posted on January 2nd, 2009 under Plant, Special Report. Tags: Clouds, Jatropha, Plants, Weather. Comments: None

An NGO in Mindanao found top four plant species to be potent soil fertilizer and a good source of forage.

When the Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center (MBRLC) Foundation, Inc. started its operation in the early 1970s in Kinuskusan, Bansalan, Davao del Sur, farmers from the nearby areas came and complained of low and declining farm income as their foremost problem.

One farmer reported that his corn production had dropped from 3.5 tons per hectare to about 0.5 ton per hectare. Other farmers said that yields of other crops had also-dropped 60-80% in the same period.

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Posted on December 4th, 2008 under Plant. Tags: Fertilizer, Forage, Plants. Comments: 1

Whether you are a hobbyist or a commercial plant grower, growing beautiful hanging plants could be very rewarding. The trick is to grow hanging plants that are special. Special in a way because they stands out above the usual. It could be one that uses a new plant not usually, used as hanging plant. Or it could be an old variety but is outstanding for a number of reasons.

Just like what Tom Brynie of California does. He grows Boston ferns that are so huge their fronds are as long as six feet. And because they are so extraordinary, he charges a really high price for them. Some of his hanging plants have been used in the White House.

In the Philippines, Mody Manglicmot also used to produce really huge hanging Boston ferns. They were so perfectly grown, interior decorators didn’t mind paying a high price for them.

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Posted on December 2nd, 2008 under Plant. Tags: Plants. Comments: None

All feeds - raw materials or finished products - are suitable media for growth of a wide variety of molds, provided temperature and moisture conditions are favorable.

Molds, or amag in Filipino, are fungi distinguished by the formation of mycelium, a network of filament or threads, or by spore masses.

More than 100 kinds of molds which grow on standing crops or in feeds are known to produce toxins (mycotoxins), and about 20 of these mycotoxins have been associated with diseases in animals or humans:

In recent years, nutritionists have been giving increasing attention to the effects of fungal infestation of feeds. It has been demonstrated that many nutritional problems in the past - for example, suspected nutrient deficiencies were in fact, caused by feeds contaminated with fungi.

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Posted on November 29th, 2008 under Farming, Plant. Tags: Disease, Mold, Plants. Comments: None

New Zealand is home to 2,065 native plants, found nowhere else on Earth. They range from magnificent towering kauri trees to tiny flowers that form tightly packed mounds called vegetable sheep.

When Europeans began arriving in New Zealand, they brought with them alien plants crops, garden plants and stowaway weeds. Today, 22,000 non-native plants grow in New Zealand. Most of them can survive only with the loving care of gardeners and farmers. But 2,069 have become naturalized: they have spread out across the islands on their own. There are more naturalized invasive plant species in New Zealand than native species.

It sounds like the makings of an ecological disaster: an epidemic of invasive species that wipes out the delicate native species in its path. But in a paper published in August in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dov Sax, an ecologist at Brown University, and Steven D. Gaines, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, point out that the invasion has not led to a mass extinction of native plants. The number of documented extinctions of native New Zealand plant species is a grand total of three.

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Posted on November 27th, 2008 under Plant. Tags: Plants. Comments: None

The rice disease called bacterial leaf blight occurs mostly during the wet season when water overflows in rice fields. The symptoms of this disease manifest at 45 to 55 days after transplanting (DAT) and it accounts for 30 to 40 percent of rice yield losses.

PhilRice experts, however, say that even if the wet season favors the occurrence of rice diseases like bacterial leaf blight, farmers may as well follow a number of practical tips to make their occurrence unfavorable.

The experts said strong wind, heavy rains, and 25°C-35°C temperature, excessive nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus deficiency, and use of highly susceptible variety aggravate the severity of bacterial leaf blight.

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Posted on October 3rd, 2008 under Plant. Tags: Disease, Plants. Comments: None