Twelfth Week Report: Mabuhay Agritech Ministry, Iloilo, Philippines – November 12, 2023

The Mabuhay Agritech mission project is winding down in Sitio Bitin, Barrio Janipaan Oeste, New Lucena, Iloilo.

They are now in their twelfth week, all they are waiting on now is for their plants to develop into fruit so they can be harvested.

They were given written exams and all passed.  There was a discussion post-exam on correct answers that they missed. They are continuing to harvest from the early crops they planted.  But the other plants like squash and other vine vegetables are still growing and have not flowered yet.   They harvested eggplants, tomatoes, bitter gourd, pole beans, etc.  But this is just from the first plot.  They have vegetables in 20 other plots that have not flowered yet.

They continue to inspect their plots every day and use their baking soda sprays for bugs they see.  They usually see aphids and slugs and they spray their fruits just to make sure the insect borers will not attack them.  They have observed that the flying pests that they normally see are not as much, and attribute these to the companion plants they have of marigolds, citronella, and lemon grass bushes. 

Note:  the culture understands only fertilizers and pesticides that are chemically based.  This is the first time they heard about companion plants, pollinator fields, and prophylaxis of baking soda sprays that will prevent pest attacks.  They are only used to seeing pesticides that kill insects on contact.  Hence, we realized too late that they have not been using the “baking soda sprays” willingly and regularly because of the following reasons.

• “We sprayed them on flying pests, and it did not kill them right away.  We know they are not effective in killing pests.”
• “We are not in the fields 24 hours a day to see the pests coming to attack the vegetables, and therefore we will not be there to spray them when they come in order to kill them.”

On the positive side, they did see a dramatic decrease in insect borer attacks as compared to previous years, and they have not seen any spoiled tomato or eggplant harvests this year because of this.  Aphids have also been controlled. Education is again given to change their inherent belief system, in the use of baking soda sprays.

Planting of marigolds:  they waited about 3 weeks to plant these, because they said, “That is not a vegetable, and we cannot eat that.” Hence the marigolds have not flowered yet when their vegetables started to flower and bear fruit.  Not enough protection was given. 

They did plant citronella and lemon grass as their other companion plants, but these were planted too far away from their vegetable plots to give protection. 

Planting of fruit trees.  The planting of cacao and coffee seedlings is not completed yet, as they are waiting to find more banana saplings to plant with them, and more coconut trees to plant in between to give it shade when it grows higher. 

Blaming nature for their poor crop harvests.

“It has been raining every day in the evening, so our tomato blooms get washed away.”

“Our tomato fruits are all small, we did not fertilize them enough.  We need to give them more ‘complete’ and urea”.  (They actually planted cherry tomatoes. Their fruits will never get any bigger.  They were the only available seeds available to purchase at the start of the program.) But then we started a discussion again on NPK. What brings in the leaves, what strengthens the roots, and what encourages blooming and fruiting. These questions will be in their final exam.

“It has been too hot which is why the tomato plants are wilting.”  If it is not too much rain, now they blame too much heat. 

But they do have water reservoir ponds that they could get water from to water their crops on days that it does not rain. In fact, these ponds have been very successful in maintaining enough water for the plants that we have not pumped water from our wells to water them.

Despite the continuous education and change in inherent belief systems prevalent in the culture, they do note the following.

We are harvesting compost from our vermicast bins now, and are able to use them already on our germination trays and plots.

The water reservoir ponds which we call lotus ponds 1 and 2 (we planted a lotus in them to clarify the muddy water) are always filling up from rainwater in the morning and are of enough quantity to use in the fields daily.  They have been stocked with just enough tilapia to feed on mosquito larvae that could be breeding in the still water.  Dengue is still prevalent in the province, and there is a mandate to treat all standing water to prevent mosquitoes from using it as breeding grounds. But the lotus flowers are also attracting dragonflies, which are seen hovering over them daily.  Frogs which are attracted to the water, also help control pests and harmful insect populations.  Mosquitoes, fruit flies, and big flies are not observed on the farm, as they used to be.

They just planted their pollinator garden about 2 weeks ago, and the plants are still small.  Again, another educational point, as they could not understand why they must plant flowers along with their vegetables.  Discussion on pollinators ensued.  Pollinators are important as without them our unpollinated flowers will not bear fruit, thus no food.

They have learned to differentiate between pests and fungi attacking their plants and have adjusted to the correct timing on when to use pesticides and when to use fungicides.  They are also learning how to continue making their own organic pesticides from neem trees, nitrogen fertilizers from madre de cacao, and calphos from eggshells and banana peels. 

So far, we have added all the harvests they had sold at market price, and it was only P12,500 as of last week.  Still not enough to cover all their seed expenses.  But then only one or two plots are bearing fruit currently.  They have more than 20 plots planted.  The students are aware of the ‘expenses vs income’ and are all willing to continue monitoring their vegetable plots until they finish this project.  They are looking for another month for them to realize their harvests. 

So with this twelfth-week report, we will culminate the project at this time with a last exam, as there will be nothing to report until all the harvest is finished mid to the end of next month.  We are looking forward to their graduation in mid-December, before Christmas. 

This is our twelfth and final Mabuhay Agritech project report.  The next report will be at their graduation in December.  Photos will follow.

Very sincerely yours,

(Sgd) Zonia Velasco

Mabuhay Fellowship

Eleventh Week Report: Mabuhay Agritech Ministry, Iloilo, Philippines – November 5, 2023

The Mabuhay Agritech mission project continues in Sitio Bitin, Barrio Janipaan Oeste, New Lucena, Iloilo.

The students continue the following activities daily:

All class lectures are finished.  They are now starting to harvest from the early crops they planted.  They have eggplants, tomatoes, bitter gourd, pole beans, etc. 

They continue to inspect their plots every day and use their baking soda sprays for bugs they see.  They usually see aphids and slugs and they spray their fruits just to make sure the insect borers will not attack them.  They have observed that the flying pests that they normally see are not as much, and attribute these to the companion plants they have of marigolds, citronella, and lemon grass bushes. 

They continue to make their own organic concoctions for fertilizers and pesticides from some ingredients they source from what’s available on the farm like madre de cacao, and neem trees.  They also make their own calphos (calcium-phosphorus) from eggshells and banana peels. 

Vermicompost plots are fed with shredded banana stalks.  They are starting to harvest compost and use these for their germination beds.   They also make vermitea from them to water their plants.  

They only worked 5 days a week this week because of the All Souls Day where it was tradition to clean the cemetery plots of their ancestors and stand vigil the whole day in the cemetery with their families.  The day before is spent cleaning and repainting of the tombs white while the women start making food for the following day.  Then on All Souls Day, they are out there in the cemetery with their families, spending the day, offering fresh flowers, lighting candles, with prayers for the dead, eating together, and recounting their best memories of the departed.  This is a tradition that is observed in all parts of the Philippines on All Souls Day.

The water reservoir pond 2 which we have planted with lotus is not as muddy looking as it used to be. The lotus seems to be doing the trick.  They did place some tilapia fish fingerlings in the pond to help control mosquito larvae that could be in the pond.  We still have dengue in the locality, and all sources of standing water are being treated.  It has been raining almost every night, so the reservoir pond is kept full by the rainwater flowing downhill.  This is their water source during the day to water their vegetable plots. 

Tree Planting:  Coconuts, cacao, and coffee.  We are still planting banana saplings to act as shade to these young trees, but we are also looking for more coconut trees that could shade them when they grow and mature.    The Department of Agriculture is suggesting the combination of COCOCAO, triple trees planted and intercropped together: Coconut, coffee, and cacao.  All are 100-year-old trees. 

Other trees we have that are growing well are the avocado and bignay trees. We have fuji apple trees, and they are getting taller.   We have a citrus area, but they think the pomelo in this area is being attacked by fungi also.  The bananas are also being attacked by fungi, so we will ask the Department of Agriculture’s help to thwart this problem.  They gave us Trichoderma, Isarea, and copper treatments before. We will ask again. 

Vegetable Gardens.   The 7 new plots they completed and covered with mulch last week, have now been planted with the tomatoes that came from the US.  These are bigger types of tomatoes.  The tomatoes they had planted there were cherry tomatoes, not their choice, but because they were the only available seeds when we bought them. 

Okra and other vine vegetables are still growing.  The squash is looking healthy as it creeps on the ground, but no fruits yet.  We did harvest some ampalaya (bitter gourd) and pole beans, but we are still waiting for the other vegetables to fruit.

Companion plants and herbs.  Somehow, the students thought these were not that important so they did not plant them together with the vegetables.  They say they are planting them now but are slow in germinating.   I have sent them seeds for rosemary, basil, and chamomile.   They do have some marigolds, citronella, and lemon grass are known to help control bugs, pests, mosquitoes, flies, etc. They seem to work as we have fewer pests flying around, but because of the number of vegetable plots that have been made, we need to plant some more. Lemon grass is used as a spice for cooking and is especially good to put in the cavities of roasted fowl and lechon pig.  It is also used for boiled chicken soup, etc. Citronella grass could be cut into short pieces and cooked with coconut oil or olive oil and can be used to deter mosquitoes and other pests, as well as snakes.      

They continue to find catfish, mudfish, and a small type of fish that are in the shallow water of the rice fields now. They are now also finding edible small snails (like escargot) that they could gather for cooking.   5 years ago, the tenants who leased the rice land had been using heavy chemical fertilizers and pesticides.  They thought this Western way was progress. But the land has declined and become barren, and it was only about 4 years ago that we started to forbid anything but organic practices.  This rice field is in a natural depression about 15 feet lower than the hills that are on each side.  It is fed by rainwater from upstream during the rainy season.  The whole area, including all the farms upstream, has used heavy chemical fertilizers and pesticides in the past.  This has not only lowered their harvest yield through the years but also the waterspouts that we used to have in the fields disappeared.  All the incidental catfish, mudfish, and other small fish that they fished out from the wet rice fields had disappeared since also. We have improved this land now, because of our organic practices.  Neighborhood farm areas are noticing what we are doing organically to the land, and are starting to ask questions and are following suit.

This is our eleventh Mabuhay Agritech project report.   Photos will follow.

Very sincerely yours,

(Sgd) Zonia Velasco

Mabuhay Fellowship

Tenth Week Report: Mabuhay Agritech Ministry, Iloilo, Philippines – October 28, 2023

The Mabuhay Agritech mission project continues in Sitio Bitin, Barrio Janipaan Oeste, New Lucena, Iloilo.

The students continue the following activities daily:

They have finished with all their class lectures.  Their last lecture was on fungi which they observed attacking the plants and trees, and through the Department of Agriculture, learned effective ways of control.  The students now keep their notebooks on the farm, so they can look at the recipes for concoctions they make, as needed.   They come daily to work on their garden plots, tilling and aerating soil, weeding, and planting the germinated seeds they had last week.  They did not believe in the baking soda spray pesticide/fungicide, as this has never been practiced by their ancestors, but now they see where pests had attacked and eaten their plants and they had no choice but to use them and are now able to observe beneficial effects. Mostly they use them for spot sprays on some areas which they find during inspection. 

They continue to make their own organic concoctions for fertilizers and pesticides from some ingredients they source from what’s available on the farm like madre de cacao, and neem trees.  They also make their own calphos (calcium-phosphorus) from eggshells and banana peels.  They continue to tend to their vermicompost beds and daily they shred banana stalks to fill the beds and still use the green and the brown leaves to feed them. Some vermicompost had been harvested and used for the germination trays.  They also mix them with water to make vermitea which they use on their planted beds.  

They continue to work 7 days a week now, although they took a day to participate in the city’s “Cry of Jelicoun Festival” commemorating the attack on the town by the Spanish conquistadores in the 1800’s, and how the residents armed themselves with bolos and sticks to fend off the invaders and won, thwarting the Spanish occupation in their town at that time.  Of course, history tells us that this was just a temporary victory as Spain colonized the country from the 1600s to 1898 when America came and colonized the country until 1945.

Meanwhile, the food allowance supply of 1/3 a sack of rice and other canned goods, are still enough to feed them for lunch and 2 snacks in the morning and evening.  The tropical heat in the 40’s is unrelenting, and they must stop at noontime when the sun is directly above them, and rest until 2 pm to take their siesta.  This gives them time to cook and rest. The rice fields had overflowed with water, and increased water came down to flood our fields from upstream.  A catfish pond overflowed upstream and dumped plenty of catfish, a few of which they were able to catch and cook.  They broiled them over charcoal and ate them with rice and cooked hot soup with vegetables like pechay and moringa that are plentiful and sourced from the farm. 

The meter-long giant lizard monitor species which locals name as “halu” or “Haluan” has not been back, and they think it went into the rice fields where there are plenty of field mice for it to feed on. 

The water reservoir pond 2 which we have planted with lotus is still looking muddy as it is fed from rainwater flowing down the hill, but they report that planting the lotus there has helped clear up the mud.  It rains every night now and fills up these 4 feet x 4 feet and 3 feet deep pond.  This is their water source during the day to water their vegetable plots. 

Tree Planting:  Coconuts, cacao, and coffee.  We have allotted a portion of land where we have just counted 100 cacao trees, 100 dwarf coconut trees, and coffee.  These were planted there in the past years.  Unfortunately, the coffee died, because of lack of shade.  So we are planting banana trees as a fast solution to give shade to new coffee plants and new cacao plants soon.  However, banana trees do not last as long as cacao and coffee which are both 100-year-long trees.  The long-term solution is to intercrop each cacao and coffee with coconut trees, which are also 100-year-long trees.  When the coconut trees grow taller, they could be the permanent shade tree for the coffee and cacao.   Each student group (we have 2 groups) needs to plant at least 5 trees, and this is still the unfinished part of their task. The mayor of New Lucena has started a cacao processing plant which she says will process cacao from seed to chocolate, so she is encouraging the planting of these trees. 

Other trees we have which are growing well are the avocado and bignay trees. We have fuji apple trees, and they are getting taller.   We have a citrus area, but they think the pomelo in this area is being attacked by fungi also.  The bananas are also being attacked by fungi, so we will ask the Department of Agriculture’s help to thwart this problem.  They gave us Trichoderma, Isarea, and copper treatments before.

Vegetable Gardens.   The 7 new plots they completed and covered with mulch last week, are now ready to be planted by the newly germinated seeds.   

Harvest.   Harvested another 5 kilos of eggplants.  The tomatoes have been affected by the rain and are losing their flowers from the heavy overnight downpour.  However, they are hopeful they can harvest some as they still have some small green fruits getting bigger daily.  Okra and other vine vegetables are still growing, but no flowers or fruit yet.  The vine vegetables are still growing, and the squash is looking healthy as it creeps on the ground. But no fruits yet.  Vine vegetables are ampalaya (bitter melon), pole beans, cucumber, and patola (long gourd).

Pollinator plots. They are planting their germinated seeds for these plots.  The zinnias, cosmos plants, are growing and starting to bud. Sunflowers still need to be planted.  There already are marigolds planted and are used as companion plants together with citronella and lemon grass herbs to control pests. We have had bees flying around and had been the major pollinators for the adjoining dragon fruit field flowers, but lately, they report seeing butterflies also.    

Companion plants and herbs.  I have sent them seeds for rosemary, basil, and chamomile, but they have not germinated nor planted any of them yet.  Marigolds, citronella, and lemon grass are known to help control bugs, pests, mosquitoes, flies, etc. They seem to work as we have fewer pests flying around, but because of the number of vegetable plots that have been made, we need to plant some more. Lemon grass is used as a spice for cooking and is especially good to put in the cavities of roasted fowl and lechon pig.  It is also used for boiled chicken soup, etc. Citronella grass can be cut into short pieces and cooked with coconut oil or olive oil and can be used to protect the body from mosquito and other small insect bites.    

Proof of the land turning fertile through organic methods:  This is an 11-hectare farm, of which only 5 hectares had been used for rice planting before.  Our Mabuhay Agritech Ministry is only using about a hectare for our projects.  

They are happy to report that they now find catfish, mudfish, and a small type of fish that are in the shallow water of the rice fields. They are now also finding edible small snails (like escargot) that they could gather for cooking. 5 years ago, the tenants who leased the rice land had been using heavy chemical fertilizers.  They thought this Western way was progress. But the land has declined since, and it was only about 4 years ago that we started to forbid anything but organic practices.  This rice field is in a natural depression about 15 feet lower than the hills that are on each side.  It is fed by rainwater from upstream during the rainy season.  The whole area, including all the farms upstream, has used heavy chemical fertilizers and pesticides in the past.  This has not only lowered their harvest yield through the years but also the waterspouts that we used to have in the fields disappeared.  All the incidental catfish, mudfish, and other small fish that they fished out from the wet rice fields had disappeared since also.  However, recently, our farmhands reported that they were able to catch catfish and mudfish again when the fields were full of rainwater.  The whole farm is now returning to the “living” land it used to be.

This is our tenth-week progress report.  We continue to make a difference in that part of the province.  We are proud of our students’ achievements and the increased practical knowledge they are starting to enrich themselves with.   Old detrimental practices are being replaced by organic productive knowledge.   We are definitely changing lives.  Photos will follow.

Very sincerely yours,

(Sgd) Zonia Velasco

Mabuhay Fellowship

The Mabuhay Agritech mission project continues in Sitio Bitin, Barrio Janipaan Oeste, New Lucena, Iloilo.

The students continue in the following activities daily:

Tilling and aerating soil on their plots, weeding.  This week they also finished spraying with isarea fungicide to protect the soil and the plants from fungal infection.  They have baking soda spray bottles with them also for spot sprays on some areas which they find after inspection.  They also continue to make their own organic concoctions for fertilizers and pesticides from some ingredients they source from what’s available on the farm like madre de cacao, and neem trees. They continue to tend to their vermicompost beds and daily they shred banana stalks to fill the beds. They already have harvested some compost and since it is still not enough in quantity, there was enough to make vermitea which they use on their planted beds.   

They also work 7 days a week now, and they have a food allowance which allows them to cook their lunch and snacks in the morning and evening. They still have half a sack of rice, which we will add to just in case they run out of rice. They expend a lot of physical energy in their work and hence need to eat more.  They buy protein-rich products and augment them with vegetables like moringa and other root crops found on the farm.

Last week a meter-long giant lizard monitor species which locals name “halu” or “Haluan” splashed into their water reservoir 2, also fondly called lotus pond 2, where they had already transplanted 3 lotus plants in pots under it.  The planted lotus is there to help purify and clean the water of mud and algae.

This pond is only 4 feet x 4 feet and 3 feet deep. It is on top of the hill and is filled up only by rainwater whenever it rains, which is about 3-4 times a week at night.  This pond never filled up to the rim, and during the rice planting season, one of the farmhands soaked rice seedlings in it and made it turn cloudy, and soon green algae formed. To control the green algae, they tried to put Clorox into it but did not know the full amount to put for the volume of water present.  So they poured the whole can of Clorox in.  The following day, they realized they put too much as it killed 3 frogs which they saw floating on the surface.  They fished these out and started to empty the pond again since the water started to smell foul, but it was the scent of these dead animals that attracted the monitor lizard there.  Although Monitor lizards are not known to be harmful to humans, they do have venom and are known to eat pests, frogs, smaller lizards, fish, mice, and rats.  They are also dead body scavengers. It is no longer there now and has probably moved on to another feeding area where it can find food.  Hopefully, it goes to the adjoining rice field to find the rats that are menacing rice harvests.

Vegetable Gardens.  Some of the germinated vegetables planted did not make it, so some plots are incomplete, but they said they will replant some as they continue to germinate some more seeds again.  Also, they made another new 7 vegetable plots and had just covered them in plastic mulch this week.  They are also germinating more vegetable seeds.

Harvest.  Harvested 7 kilos of eggplants.  While tomatoes already have flowers or small green fruits, the eggplants have already given them 7 kilos of harvest.  Okra and other vine vegetables are still growing, but no flowers or fruit yet. 

Pollinator plots. They had started germinating seeds for this although some flowers are already there like marigolds and zinnias.  In fact, they report seeing butterflies for the first time although bees had been there for a while. 

Companion plants and herbs.  These are delayed as they did not realize the importance of these companion plants to prevent pests and harmful insect control.  They continue to plant marigolds, citronella, and lemon grass.  These last two are also herbs, and with their herbs, they are planting blue ternate flowers, although they have run out of seeds for these and have requested me to send them some from Thailand.  I have sent them seeds for rosemary, basil, and chamomile, but they have not germinated nor planted any of them yet.  Marigolds, citronella, and lemon grass are known to help control bugs, pests, mosquitoes, flies, etc. They seem to work as we have fewer pests flying around, but because of the number of vegetable plots that have been made, we need to plant some more.

Lemon grass is used as a spice for cooking and is especially good to put in the cavities of roasted fowl and lechon pig.  It is also used for boiled chicken soup, etc.

Citronella grass can be cut into short pieces and cooked with coconut oil or olive oil and can be used to protect the body from mosquito and other small insect bites.    

Proof of land turning fertile through organic methods.  This is a 25-hectare farm, of which only 5 hectares had been used for rice planting before.  Our Mabuhay Agritech Ministry is only using about a hectare for our projects.  

But until 5 years ago, the tenants who leased the rice land had been using heavy chemical fertilizers.  The land had declined since, and it was only about 4 years ago that I personally took over management and forbade anything but organic practices.  The rice field is in a natural depression about 15 feet lower than the hills that are on each side.  It is fed by rainwater from upstream during the rainy season.  The whole area, including all the farms upstream, has used heavy chemical fertilizers and pesticides in the past.  This has not only lowered their harvest yield through the years but also the waterspouts that we used to have in the fields disappeared.  My father used to tell me they had catfish, mudfish, and other small fish that they fished out of the wet rice fields.  These had disappeared since also.  However, our farmhands now report that they were able to catch catfish and mudfish again when the fields were full of rainwater. 

To purify the water in the fields, we planted tibbig trees on the banks. This is a ficus variety that when mature has fruits come out from the trunk.  We planted them along the edges of the rice land. They are still not mature, but their job is to purify the water supply, and their roots go down deep into the water table to help bring clean water up.  We have planted these near our wells, but also along all the depressions where water could flow. During the war, wandering soldiers would identify this tree and cut its branches for their water supply in the fields.  A cut branch will gush clean water like a faucet does.  Anyway, this week, the farmers reported that they saw catfish, mudfish, and other small fish, and have even successfully caught some for food.  This is the first time this has happened in the last 5 years. 

This is our ninth-week progress report.  All our student participants in this program are very appreciative of the financial assistance from Westminster, and all the incidental technical assistance and research information that has come from this endeavor.  We are very proud of their achievements and increased knowledge.  We are changing lives.

Very sincerely yours,

(Sgd) Zonia Velasco

Mabuhay Fellowship

Sixth Week Report – Mabuhay Agritech Ministry Program, Iloilo, Philippines

Our students continue to work on their garden plots, weeding, tilling the soil around, germinating new seeds, and transplanting them to their plots.  They continue to test their soil and use additives to improve the pH levels. 

They have planted tomatoes, eggplants, okra, peppers, etc. For vine crops, they have cucumbers, bitter melon, patola gourd, and native pumpkins.  For ground crops, they have taro and sweet potatoes. They have also planted some pineapple.  For trees, we have sourced cacao, robusta coffee, coconuts, rambutan, and a local tree called batuan, which fruit is used in cooking sour soup. They have also cut some moringa tree stems, rooted them, and planted them around the farm. We have more than 100 moringa trees growing.  Our goal is 1000.

One of the things they have neglected to do is plant more companion plants like marigolds, and lemon grass in their plots to protect their vegetables from harmful insects and pests.  They now each have a sprayer filled with baking soda mixture to spray on their vegetables to control pests. They are learning about pollinator beds, and companion planting, and are now busy planting beneficial flowers to fill their pollinator beds, which will attract pollinators like bees, and butterflies to help pollinate their vegetable flowers.

Zonia attended a conference in Oklahoma last week to learn about the urgency of planting vegetation and flowering plants for pollinators. She also learned about butterfly farming and the feasibility of adding this to the attraction elements of the farm, as it is very complementary.  She also sourced places in Metro Manila where multiple butterfly pupae that are endemic to the area could be bought to bring to Iloilo. Monarchs are also some of the butterflies that are endemic to the Philippines.  We could start many pollinator beds on the farm already and fill them up with perennial and annual flowers as well as other plants for the butterfly caterpillars to eat.  In other words, we could already start creating a habitat for pollinators.

Lotus Ponds 1 and 2.  These were dug as water reservoir areas, lotus pond 1 being 3 years old now.  Both are only 4’x 4’ x 3’ depth.  Intended to be shallow so as to avoid drowning accidents. They are covered with pond laminate, and filled with water from the rain, or pumped from our wells at night. Pond number 2 became problematic when one of the farmers soaked rice seedlings there overnight.  It became green with algae.  So they were advised to put 2 tbs of Clorox into the water, but instead, they put the contents of the whole bottle.  The following day, 2 dead frogs were floating on its surface.  So this time they cleaned it again and used pails to bail out the water from the pond.  They then cleaned its walls with just soap and is now clean enough.  Rains at night is filling it up and is now half full.  This time, they are putting in pots of lotus from Pond Number 1. Lotus affects murky water by clarifying it by its roots.  In time, we will also put some tilapia fish in it to eat the remaining algae off its walls and control mosquito larvae also, as this is a dengue disease region, and mosquitoes carry dengue as well as malaria. 

Vermicompost beds: we have six of them under a roofed area, and daily, the students scamper to feed them. We have local vermi-worms, but we also have the larger African worms that help make the process of composting go faster.  They are fed both green and brown leaves, but chopped-up banana stalks are their favorite.  There are citrus trees nearby so care is taken that the citrus leaves are not put into the beds as they are harmful and even fatal to the worms.

The students are also learning about fungi infections to their plants.  We had anthracnose infection on the dragon fruit of the farm, and we have also noted them on the fruits of our bananas. About 10 days ago, we brought samples of our infected dragon fruit stems, including soil samples to the provincial Department of Agriculture laboratory.  They are tasked with assisting farmers to diagnose and treat diseases to the plants in their farm.  We knew we had rust fungus and anthracnose before but did not know there was government help.  We had been treating our dragon fruit by cutting out the infected areas, burning them, and spraying them with hydrogen peroxide.  The laboratory did not find any rust fungus anymore.  Seems like what we did helped eradicate it.  However, the anthracnose growth is strong.  Anthracnose is identified as yellowish to light brown water-soaked areas forming on the surface of the stems and fruits of the dragon fruit.  These lesions coalesce and cause watery soft spots.  Rain and moist conditions bring them.  Their spores are spread by wind, rain, insects, and infected garden tools.  They grow in 75-85 degree temperatures.  The conditions on our farm have been exactly what makes these fungi grow. Dragon fruit is not all they are attacking, as it is also attacking our bananas and mango trees, and could well spread to the vegetables the students are now growing.  Entire fields of adjoining farms with dragon fruit have already been destroyed completely.

This is the treatment plan given by the Department of Agriculture. 1)Improve the systemic strength of the plants from the inside out by feeding them with Trichoderma (other fungi that combat the bad fungi), 2) continue physically removing (and destroying by burning) the anthracnose from the stems of our plants, 3) spraying plants with a copper compound which is preventative to new lesions. Since anthracnose thrives in moisture, spraying will be done only when rainfall for 12 hours is not expected.   Reduce plant stress, keep the root zone moist but surface dry, and ensure adequate and appropriate nutrition. Magnesium and potassium are minerals that will strengthen stems and leaves.

The good news is that the Trichoderma and copper treatments were given for free by the Department of Agriculture.  The other good news is that our dragon fruit trees to show their gratitude maybe, gave us a bountiful harvest this week.  They also harvested some eggplants, and the okra will be ready next week.  They also harvested some saba or cooking bananas which they boil in the afternoon and use to complement their snacks.  We provide them with lunch and 2 snacks in the morning and afternoon. They cook their own food. We bought them 2 sacks of rice which they will try to suffice till the end of the program. They complement their food with vegetables they could source and pick from around the farm.  They are coming daily to check on their plots and vegetables so instead of a 5-day-a-week program, it is now a 7-day-a-week program. Now that flowers and fruits are coming, they are more motivated to watch what is happening to their plants daily. 

This is the sixth-week report. Pictures to follow. Students are grateful for this opportunity.  On their own, they could not afford to buy their own seeds, and they did not have land where they could garden and plant.  They get an income from the proceeds of their sales.

Sincerely yours,

SGD. Zonia Velasco

Mabuhay Training Program