Recycling Farm Wastes

Dr Abe V Rotor

Home made compost from plant residues. Lagro, QC 

1. Crops leave a lot of waste after harvest. The most common wastes for composting are rice straw, corn stover, peanut and mungo hay, banana stalk, ipil-ipil, wood and coconut by-products.

• We are getting in return very little of the value of the fertilizer we apply to our crops. We don’t even get half the value of Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium, the most important ingredients of chemical fertilizers.
30 to 60 % for N,
10 to 35 % for P, and
15 to 30% for K.

• For rice, there are more nutrients removed from the soil that go into the straw than the grain. Here is a comparison. (Grain versus straw, kg nutrient/MT)
Nitrogen: 10.5 - 7.0
Phosphorus: 4.6 – 2.3
Potassium: 3.0 – 17.5
Magnesium: 1.5 – 2.0
Calcium: 0.5 - 3.5

• Rice straw contains 85-90 percent of potassium (K) of the biomass. Thus much greater amounts of K must be applied to maintain soil supply where straw is removed.

2. Farm animals are ideal recyclers.
• Our Philippine carabao is the most efficient feed converter. Of the ruminant animals it has a digestive system that can extract the most nutrients from roughage. Thus it can survive long dry spells, and its manure is excellent fertilizer.

• Native chickens are more resistant than pure breeds to pest and unfavorable weather. They thrive on palay and corn; they forage in the field, and glean on leftovers. They are therefore, more economical to produce, tastier and free of antibiotic residues and artificial growth hormones.

• Goats thrives on farm by-products and unwanted plants. Practically anything that grows in the field is food for goats. Goats however, must be tethered or kept in pens.

• Another recycling project is vermiculture, the culture of earthworms for composting, bait for fishing, and source of protein supplement in feeds. Earthworm castings are excellent soil conditioners for ornamentals and garden crops.

3. Recycle wastes from market and kitchen. Vegetable trimmings, and waste from fish and animals require efficient collection, segregation and processing into biogas and organic fertilizer.

Fruits in season that otherwise go to waste are made into table wine of different flavors. Typhoon or drought affected sugarcane make excellent natural vinegar and molasses.

4. There are many plants growing in the field that are taken for granted or considered weeds. They are Nature’s Gifts. Tap them instead. Examples: Lantana camara as natural pesticide; oregano as natural medicine for cough and sore throat; chichirica as drug against cancer; pandan as spice and condiment; eucalyptus as liniment and cold drops; bunga de China for toothpaste, lagundi for fever and flu.

5. Water harvesting and conserving: Runoff water is waste. Small Water Impounding Projects (SWIP) are popular in many parts of the world where water is seasonal. Bigger ones can even generate electricity for the locality. The Bureau of Soils and Water Management of the Department of Agriculture has developed the technology on water impounding.
x x x

NOTE: Please add more information to further enrich this article, particularly on those practices in farm recycling indigenous in your place.

Crucible

Painting and Verse by Abe V Rotor

"I'm Icarus -  which way should I go -

fly into the light of the sun,

from the bowels of the earth?"

"Just don't look up, or look down,

follow the feathered kind, my son."

Helios waits for the bold,

and below Vesuvius of old.

Silence, but the searing heat 

and Daedalus' lament. ~

Let's control the fruit fly: cosmopolitan pest of fruits and vegetables

Dr Abe V Rotor

Fruit fly (Dacus dorsalis (Family Tephritidae, Order Diptera) on banana and mabolo.  
Note the nature of damage, and size of the mature insect.  

Old folks used to tell us kids in our time that the first rain in summer brings in the dangaw (Ilk) or fruit fly rendering native fruits, like duhat, macopa and guava, unfit to eat.  True enough the first bite reveals tiny punctures, and when fully ripe. tunnels with tiny maggots squirming and catapulting to our disgust. We would throw away the whole fruit, and spit what we had hastily eaten. 

But in those days the fruit fly had few hosts, until new varieties were developed and introduced. These became readily vulnerable, triggering the buildup and spread of the pest.  New frontiers were opened, more kinds of crops cultivted, more varied agricultural practices developed breaking away from the natural cycle of the environment. Today the fruit fly has become a cosmopolitan pest of orchard, garden and field crops.    

What a havoc the fruit fly can create on a mango tree laden with fruits.  Or macopa in season. Guava. Caimito and the like. Orchards and plantations are ruined by this pest, a direct relative of the housefly. 

And that's just part of  a larger ruin. Trellises of ampalaya, squash, cucumber, and fields of  pepper, tomato, eggplant, and other vegetables virtually go to waste. 

Unless heavy doses of insecticide are applied  - poison that coats whole fruits to repel the gravid female from laying eggs, poison to cover whole fields so that no place is left to harbor the pest for a second round of attack.  And poison that can penetrate the ensconced maggots before it could do further damage. This is the most potent pesticide ever formulated.  It is systemic poison because it circulated through the plant sap, like blood, and any insect that attacks from the inside or outside is certain to die.  

It is a fact that poisons in food, air and many items cause cancer.  Pesticides are culprits to many cases of cancer.  So with kidney and liver problems, fatal or lifelong liability. Pesticides being mainly nerve poisons affect the brain and the senses, and therefore behavior and quality of life in general.  

We relate the issue of pest to global warming which has disturbed our climatic pattern and modified geography. Rainfall has become erratic,  Seasons unsuspectingly come early or late.  Sometimes there is summer. Force majeure is more often and severe. Thus the need of new agricultural strategies.  

Now we have greenhouses of tomato, melon, bell pepper, but  greenhouse products are more expensive than those produced on open fields. Geneticists came up with Genetically Modified crops - like FlavrSavr tomato.Genetically modified organisms or GMOs are dangerous to health and human development, particularly among children. That is why GMOs are branded Frankenfoods (from Frankenstein, the man-made monster in Mary Shelley's novel of the same title.) 

The fruit fly is not merely a pest.  It is a element that has sown destruction to agriculture, and therefore to the economy. It is changing the way we live. Let's control it before it does more harm.        

Let's control the fruit fly (not to be mistaken for the Drosphilla melanogaster), that has evolved into  several species under the genera Bactrocera, Dacus and Ceratitis.  They have become major pest worldwide of orchards, farms and garden, on avocado, banana, citrus, cacao, coffee, cucumber, guava, papaya, pepper, eggplant, tomato, melon, cucumber, and a host of other plants - not to mention the most important host, the mango.   

Let's control the fruit fly by cutting off its life cycle, before it lays eggs on fruits  - young and ripe -  that ultimately causes them to fall or rot on the tree; and in its feeding introduces bacteria and fungi that exacerbate damage to the tree and plantation, not to mention the harmful effect it has to humans. That by keeping strict sanitation, collecting damaged fruits as possible breeding material, and eliminating alternate hosts to bridge the next season, its population can be kept on a safe level. 

Let's control the fruit fly by bagging the fruits early  with paper bag, cut newspaper, and other suitable materials, before the gravid female oviposits on the fruits, popular a practice on mango, nangka, cucumber, ampalaya, and other crops that are convenient to protect in this laborious means. Bagging also protects fruits from other pest, injury, excessive sunlight, and reduces blemishes and deformities.     

Let's control the fruit fly by prudent use of chemical pesticide, applying it only as a last resort after all safer means are exhausted, and applying only at a threshold level determined collectively by growers in the area. Overuse of chemicals have spawned mutants in the pest population leading to increased resistance among survivors which they pass on to the next generation. Thus higher dosage or more potent chemicals are required in succeeding seasons.   

Let's control the fruit fly through cooperative farming, following specific schedules of planting, cultivation, and harvesting, among other cultural practices, like crop diversification, use of resistant varieties, roughing affected plants and residues and burning them.  Quarantine control is easier to implement, so with other government rules, and specifications of products for the local and foreign markets. 

Let's control the fruit fly to bring down the price of fruits and vegetables at affordable level, assure quality products and reduce crop loss, increase income of producers and processors, and reduce dependence on imported fruits and vegetables. And encourage backyard self-sufficiency, promote proper nutrition and good health.   

Let's control fruit flies with the same resolve in suppressing global scourges of crops (tungro of rice, blight of cereals, borers of corn),  and livestock (foot-and-mouth disease, mad cow disease), epidemics affecting human populations (HIV-AIDS, Ebola, Avian Flu), through personal initiative and or in support to national and international organizations. And through research and extension, through the academe and R & D institutions.~ 

 Cucurbit fruit fly (Dacus cucurbitae), representation of  a typical fruit fly (Dacus sp); baiting fruit flies with diluted vinegar in plastic bottle with punched holes to let attracted fruit flies to enter and get trapped), bagging of green mango fruits. Acknowledgment: Internet www infonet-biovision.org

Don't be a Victim of Heart Disease, the Number One Killer

New Year's Resolution Number 1 

Dr Abe V Rotor

I have known people - a number of them relatives, 

co-workers and former classmates - who died of heart disease. 

If you have positive family history, you are a potential candidate to heart attack and its complications. Like Damocles Sword, you know the rules to live a long and happy life. There are ten factors you should be able to manage.

First,  Don't smoke.  Just don't. 

Second, Exercise.  Be active physically.  Get out of your comfort zone. 

Third, Reduce cholesterol level. Take less of meat and more fruits and vegetables.  

Fourth, Never indulge in drinking.                       

 Healthy heart angiogram (National Geographic)

Fifth, Live on healthy diet. Watch out your glucose level.

Sixth,  Maintain normal blood pressure always. 

  

Seventh, Don't be overweight.  Reduce. 

Eighth, Have regular medical checkup.

Ninth, Set a goal for your career and family.

Tenth, Have a positive outlook in life always. Reach out for life's meaning.  

Why don't you download this article, print and pin it as a daily reminder?

Live Healthier and Longer with Natural Food

Your New Year's Resolution Number 3
Eat foods grown under natural conditions, rather than those grown and processed with the use of chemicals. And no Frankenfood (GMO), please. Dr Abe V Rotor

 Vegetarian's barbecue - all naturally grown.

It is not enough that we produce food. We must produce food that ensure good health, reduce risks to diseases and ailments, and prolong life. We must produce food that also insures the health of our environment and the stability of the ecological system.

While science and technology continue to explore new ways to increase food supply with genetic engineering, people are yearning for organic food – or naturally grown food.

Here are issues raised by the proponents of organic farming.

1. Many ailments and abnormalities are traced to the food we take. Cancer for instance, is often related to carcinogenic substances. High uric acid leads to kidney trouble. High choles¬terol and high sugar levels are associated with high blood pressure and diabetes. Aftatoxin causes cirrhosis of the liver. Ulcers are food-related, as are many allergies.

2. Proper nutrition and balanced diet can be attained by eating the right kind and amount of natural food without fortification with vitamins and minerals, and other forms of altering food value. Thus there is no need to process food unless it is really necessary. Fresh foods – vegetables, fish, and the like – are still the best. And why modify the genetic composition of crops and animals? Leave that to nature. Nature knows best.

3. Taking excess foods rich in animal fat and protein, and foods high in calories foods has predisposed many people to overweight conditions. Gaining unnecessary weight leads obesity now an epidemic sweeping many countries today particularly in cities where there is a proliferation of fast foods and junk foods. Or simply there is too much of the  “good life” – excess in food and pleasure. In the US today one out of five Americans is an obese.

4. There are natural substances that keep our body always alert to fend off stress due to overwork and diseases. They are known as probiotics. We get probiotics from fruits and   vegetables. We also get them from seaweeds, mushrooms, yoghurt, algae such as Chlorella, and cyanobacteria such as Spirulina. And there are many more sources that occur in nature. We are beginning to realize that eating foods rich in probiotics and antibiotics (substances that directly kill germs) makes us healthier and live longer.

These are the rules set by the advocates of natural farming.

1. It is always better to eat foods grown under natural conditions than those developed with the use of chemicals.

This statement can be captured with one term "natural food". All over the world this is a label found in food grown without chemicals. People are afraid of becoming ill because of chemicals introduced into the food. There are banned pesticides still in used such as methyl parathion, endosulfan, DDT, BHC, among others. These are also harmful to all living organisms and to the environment.

2. People are avoiding harmful residues of antibiotics and pesticides.

Poultry, hogs and cattle are given high levels of antibiotics to safeguard the animals from diseases. As a result the antibiotics are passed on to the consumers. Unless we are ill, the body does not need supplemental antibiotics. We have adequate natural sources. Every time we eat commercial eggs, chicken, pork chop, steak, and the like, we are taking in antibiotics which accumulate in our body, shutting off our immune systems, punishing our kidney and liver. To many people, antibiotics cause allergic reactions.

3. People are getting scared of food contaminated by radiation. Nuclear reactors are being built in many countries as a fallback to fossil fuel. After the Chernobyl nuclear plant meltdown in Russia, and that of the Three-Miles Island nuclear plant in the US, people have become wary about the consequences of fallout. A trace of radiation can be absorbed by grass in the pasture, finds its way to milk, then to infants. Radiation can remain active for hundreds of years. People are still dying today in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, more than fifty years since the bombing of the two cities with the first atomic bomb.

4. Be aware of the deleterious effects of toxic metals, such as lead, mercury and cadmium. These find their way through the food chain and ultimately reach humans. They escape to the air and enter our lungs, as in the case of dusts from old paints. Since they are in soluble compounds, they are easily absorbed by plants and animals. Kangkong for example absorbs lead. Tuna has high mercury in its tissues and liver. Cadmium from batteries is absorbed by crops.

 The simpler your food is cooked, the better.

5. People are becoming more conscious of the nutritional value of food rather than its packaging and presentation.

More and more people are shunning away from junk foods, in spite of their attractive packaging. Soft drinks have taken the backseat, courtesy of fruit juices and mineral water. People have even learned that different plant varieties have different levels of food value. Beans grown on naturally fertile soil have higher calorie and protein content than those grown on poor soil, or with chemical fertilizers. This is also true with animals. Animals raised with proper nutrition give meat, milk and eggs with higher protein, minerals notwithstanding.

6. Freshness is the primordial rule in choosing a perishable food.

There is no substitute to freshness. While freshness is a function of efficient handling and marketing, the farmer must enhance farm-to-market freshness. By keeping his standing plants healthy, his produce will stay longer on the shelf life. Products that are free from pest and diseases also stay fresher and longer. Too much water or fertilizer reduces shelf life of the commodity.

 Eat fresh fruits - avoid processed ones.

7. Food processing must be efficient and safe.

Food processing, such as drying, milling and manufacturing is key to higher profits. Whenever feasible, food must reach the table fresh. But processing is designed to lengthen the shelf life of perishable commodities. There are products that require processing before they are used. These food items include vanilla, coffee, cacao, wine and vinegar, soya, fish sauce and the like. Profits generated through processing are value-added to production.

8. Food must be free from pest and diseases.

By all means, food must be free from insects and pathogens. There are cases of food poisoning as a result of food deterioration, or contamination. Take salmonella and E. coli. Khapra beetle in grains may even cause death to animals. Weevils hasten the deterioration of the food.

9. Food preservation must ensure quality, and above all, safety.

Be aware of the fish that is stiff, yet looks fresh. It is easy to detect the odor of formalin. Salitre is harmful, so with vetsin or MSG (Monosodium glutamate). Too much salt (sodium) is not good to the body. Some puto makers add lye or sodium hydroxide to aid coagulation of the starch. We wary of sampaloc candies enticingly made red with shoe dye. The same diluted dye is used with ube manufacture to make it look like the real violet-colored tuber.

 

Watch out. the utensils you are using may contain lead, mercury, plastic compounds, aluminum oxide and other harmful substances.    

10. Beware of Frankenfood - Food derived from GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). Many countries warn of the potential dangers of genetically modified food and food products. This move is not only to safeguard health, but also the environment. Genetically modified plants and animals – as well as bacteria, protists and even viruses – are now a threat to the natural gene pool, giving rise to a new kind of pollution - genetic pollution. Once a gene pool of a certain species is contaminated with a GMO genetic material Genetic pollution cannot be eliminated, even in subsequent generations. Thus, it also disturbs natural evolution.

Next time you go to market, remember these guidelines. Why not convert that idle lot to raise food that is safe to your health and the environment? That little corner could be the start of a new green revolution.~

Caulerpa or lato is now cultivated in fishponds where
conditions can be controlled, unlike in the open sea.

Green mussel or tahong absorbs toxic metals like lead

in polluted water. It is also dangerous to eat tahong

during red tide period. It may cause paralytic poisoning.

From cigarette to pipe smoking – then I stopped. A personal saga

I reeked tobacco. People avoided me, but how did I know, if I couldn’t even smell myself? 
Your New Year's Resolution Number 2
Dr Abe V Rotor

I did not only smoke cigarettes, I graduated to pipe tobacco smoking. When you have tasted Half-and-Half or Captain Black, believe me Marlboro and Philip Morris taste flat. That’s how one gets addicted to more and stronger nicotine. And having a pipe on a Monday, and a dozen more to fit each day or occasion, and dress code, makes you stand out of the crowd, so to speak. Wow! Sikat! And you feel a special person. For in the seventies, up to now, pipe smoking people have either the British or American accent. I even tried Australian but settled poorly with Ilocano, my native tongue. Now compare pipe tobacco with pinadis (hand rolled cigar) tobacco, exaggeratedly foot-long. I almost forgot my origin.

So you see smoking is air, it is high society, it is macho, it is advertising something you do not really have, or have to. I wore coat and tie once in a while with Sherlock Holmes’ “S” pipe, or wore khaki jacket and denim pants and had MacArthur’s corn cob pipe. I also had pipes with the bowl covered with genuine leather from camel, kangaroo and anaconda, and made people believe I have gone all over the world including the Amazon. Which actually I hadn’t except a stopover once in Europe which introduced me to the idea of shifting to pipe smoking.

And I had a friend, Sel, who shared the same idea. So after finishing our doctorate, we started scouting for the best pipe in town. Definitely it should be briar wood because it’s the only wood that does not burn, and its nesting weight on the palm of the hand is assuring. I suspect that it’s being a briar is not the species but the age of the wood, perhaps as old as the Redwood or the Bristle Cone, estimated two to three thousand years old. Imagine holding a piece of time as early as BC. And history! Just like what the great English poet William Blake said, “Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.” You hold too, time and space. Pipe smoking leads you to hallucination.

I tell you what the substance is – the filler tobacco - that rouses the olfactory more than grandma's pie? It must come from a combination of selected tobacco varieties, cured with the best liqueur, and hermetically sealed to greet the user as fresh as it was blended. In Europe a blend is highly personalized, like wine. This is top secret of connoisseurs. For us here, I for one settled for two brands, American and European pipe tobacco in can, then the only available ones. Believe me the difference between the two is indistinguishable. It’s still Nicotiana tabacum, the same tobacco of Fidel Ramos, Deng Hsiao Ping, Fidel Castro, et al.

More about the art of pipe smoking. I lit my pipe with a special lighter whose flame goes downward into the bowl, and witnessed in the process of huff-and puff a Krakatau in the making. I peered into the glowing crater. Then I would savor the maiden smoke as fresh as morning air, blowing it in a series of “O’s” which takes skill to perfect it. You don’t inhale, unlike cigarette. The smoke runs through the oral to the nasal cavity and out through the nostril, gently fuming a cloud of smoke that surrounds the face, with your eyes half close in dreamy relaxation. It was really thrilling, exhilarating. What on a Sunday morning with brewed black coffee and newspaper and elevated feet?. Ah, and ahs….

Some high-chin and easy-chair years passed. I was in my middle thirties, still a bachelor. I wondered if pipe smoking attracted women of my liking. Or did I drive them to safe distance? On the mirror I didn’t change, not a bit American or European. Not even with sparse moustache which I jokingly tell my barber it is insured like that of Clark Gable. My lips were a little deformed now, and being right handed the pipe tended to settle rightward, with some teeth bearing the weight giving up. My lips lost their natural curve and color, and my teeth permanently stained no toothpaste would dare clean it in advertisement. My fingers could be mistaken for pellagra. If only they had the Midas touch!

I reeked tobacco. People avoided me, but how did I know, if I couldn’t even smell myself? It’s true. Smokers are immune to the smell of tobacco, and it is stale odor – breath, sweat, clothes, books, bed, and the like - so whom would they trust to tell them so? And my skin became dull and dry, and episodes of feeling down became frequent – so with refilling and caressing my pipe. In short I was already addicted to the nicotine and the pipe is now only secondary to it.

Nicotine is a poison, a very strong one. The extract of one stick of cigarette when directly injected into the blood stream will immediately kill the person. So why don’t we die with packs and packs of cigarette or can after can of mixed tobacco?

Doctors tell us that it’s not the nicotine per se that kills, it’s tar its carrier and medium of a dozen other poisonous substances. The tar deposits into the alveoli, the countless air sacs in the lungs, constricts blood vessels, and stains teeth and clothes. The alkaloids pile up in the kidneys and liver, and restrict natural elimination of other toxins. Elevated heart and pulse rate is our body’s coping mechanism, but like a car running uphill it loses steam fast and soon and conks out. Eyesight blurs, sense of taste deadens, so with sensation to touch, pain and pleasure. Alertness slows down, sex urge decreases and staying power shortens.

And it is not the tobacco plant itself that's the enemy; it is how it is grown. The plant picks up the arsenic dusted or sprayed, the lead and mercury in contaminated soil, so with cadmium from batteries today. Systemic pesticides that kill insects, nematodes and mites ensconced in the plant body, unreached by ordinary spraying, persist as residue of high dosage.

By the way, there’s something in the tobacco that changed biology on the concept of what realy makes athing living?. It is the tobacco mosaic virus, Marmor tabaci. The rod shaped virus infects tobacco on the field just by rubbing or mere touch of a diseased to healthy plants. And it infects as well all members of the tobacco family - Solanaceae , to which Irish potato, pepper, eggplant, tomato belong. The virus remains domant in as long as twenty years in the cigarette or filler.  And when you touch any of the host plants, it resurrects into virulence. Luckily, scientists assures us the virus has no effect on humans.

But with millions all over the world dying from smoking and its many complications, I believe the virus has mutated - even if biologically it is not considered a true organism. Mutation is still governed by error in DNA replication. And the virus basically has the DNA structure like all other things considered as living.

Really there’s nothing good about smoking, contrary to advertisements. I wonder how one can go a mile for a Camel when he is already exhausted at the start. Didn’t the cowboy in Marlboro retire too soon? Salem doesn’t make a beautiful landscape. Fortune isn’t something one expects. Fighter did not make us in our time as brave as Buccaneer.

Take the economic side. Our DOH says the government spends every year some P235 billion a year to treat illnesses caused or related to smoking like heart diseases, stroke, emphysema and lung cancer. And what does the government get in return from the tobacco industry? Only P23 billion, a measly 10 percent of the cost. PDI’s editorial The Puff that Kills, June 1, 2011, reported smoking kills 10 Filipinos every hour, or 243 a day. That’s 87,600 a year – and that’s a conservative estimate. Here is a case of an “old” goose laying the golden eggs, not worth it.

One day I was diagnosed of ulcer in the mouth, a wound that doesn’t heal. If you can’t eat, imagine the rapid decline in body weight and the various ailments you fall to. My clothes became oversized. I likened myself to a POW in a concentration camp in WWII.

“If you don’t stop smoking, you will die,” my doctor warned. “And soon!” he admonished.

Period. My pipes became museum pieces. A beautiful girl came. We got married, and have three children. We are now living happily.

Smoking changed my life – when I stopped it completely. ~ 

Harvesting Rainwater: The Art and Practice

Dr Abe V Rotor 

 

A bountiful harvest of rainwater cuts down water bill; it is environment-friendly and 
a source of enjoyment.  At home, Lagro QC.

1. Join downspouts together to maximize harvest of rainwater in one place.
2. Keep roof, gutter and downspout regularly cleaned and declogged of any debris.   
3. Avoid using red lead paint, use epoxy paint instead, to avoid lead contaminant.  
4. Filter rainwater with fine screen or cloth before transferring to container.
5. Plastic containers are convenient but they serve only as temporary storage.
6. Wide mouth containers may cause accident. They are not designed as bath tubs.
7. Use water within five days, otherwise it breeds mosquitoes and other vermin. 
8. Clean and expose containers under the sun for an hour or two to disinfect. 
9. Invert and be ready for the next rain to come. Store only clean rainwater.      
10. Final storage is ideally a garden pond. It is multipurpose: fish culture, water for cleaning, watering and for use in case of fire. 

A garden pond adds aesthetic beauty to the place, adds coolness and tranquility, cum a gentle sound of a fountain and running stream.Garden Pond at home in Lagro, QC. Take Nature Home mural painting by the author.

 
Catfish and pako fish raised in a garden pond.