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How I am Beating Drought with Harvested Rainwater

http://www.teachamantofish.org.uk/blogs/PINETREE/index.html

How I am Beating Drought with Harvested Rainwater

It's drought in the Philippines and it is giving farmers woes and headaches. Crops are dying so are livestock especially chicken. Even fishes are dying. Many farmers cannot plant. Fifteen women and young men we are training on sustainable gardening cannot plant because there is no water. Some people with water pumps say they don't get enough water from underneath the ground.

In my house, I am dealing with the drought with harvested rainwater I saved last year when typhoons hit our place. I harvest water from the sky.

Not many know that there are two types of water--greenwater and bluewater. Greenwater are those that come from lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, springs, brooks and waterholes. Bluewater is rain. Most of green water is wasted and spent unwisely. But only few people harvest rainwater which is abundant every rainy season.

I have some 3,000 plastic bottles filled with rainwater. I estimate my harvested rainwater to be about 1,000 liters. This water is supporting my beans and pumpkin crops.

I recommend people to harvest rainwater during rainy days and store them. It may not only save their crops. One day, it may be their lives.

For ways on how to harvest rainwater, write me at michaelbengwayan@hotmail.com

The Importance of Petroleum Nut to the Philippines and to Filipinos

Dear Friends at Bibaknets,

In 2005, I decided to leave my journalism Reinhard Mohn Fellowship at Germany to work on a native tree which I believed would one day provide rural folks a sustainable alternative energy. I refer to the petroleum nut (Pitosporum resineferum) which grows in the Cordillera region but sadly now are very few because their natural habitat continue to be destroyed. I have read an article in the Canopy publication of the Forest Research Institute dated 1982 that it was impossible to grow the tree from seeds that is why FORI (now ERDS of DENR used cuttings and planted these in Loakan). Being an agriculturist, I wanted to find out. I harvested a few seeds at Kayapa, Nueva Vizcaya. I plantied the seeds in various media but also failed. After four months, I was only able to grow 23 which I planted in my house in Longlong and farm in Tublay. These are now 5 years old and ready to bear fruit.

After a year, I discovered why it was difficult to plant the seeds. Correcting earlier untried research efforts, I was able to raise more than 10,000 seedlings. I meticulously recorded all my research activities and after two years I was ready to distribute thousands of seedlings to farmers.

Why did I bother about the tree? Because of three reasons. First, it will provide rural-dwelling Filipinos an alternative and ustainable source of fuel to replace expensive and vanishing fossil fuel. Secondly, when people plant the tree to harvest its fruits for oil, there will be less cutting of trees for fuelwood or firewood because rural families will now use oil from the petroleum nut for cooking and lighting. Third, the more people will plant petroleum nut to get more oil for socio-economic needs, the more trees there will be to serve as carbon sink and help prevent global warming.

When I made my discoveries, I went to several government agencies but they were not interested. So I continued my work alone. Today, I am happy to tell you that I and my small team have successfully been able to:

1) Test and prove that the petroleum nut oil can replace LPG and kerosene for cooking
2) It can replace kerosene for lighting.
3) It can run small one stroke engine and even a small water pump.

Fueld by our discovereries, we wrote several international organizations. Many responded and bared how they would help us, indicating the large economic potential of the tree. A Singaporean, a Japnese and five European organizations continue to pursue us in a joint venture.

However, we have chosen one institution because of one reason. We have chosen to forge a working relationship with the University of Tennessee because they are the only group which assured us that they will help us protect the patent rights of the tree from going into the control of biopirates, something we wanted to be assured of from all those who made an offer. In my presentation to the Benguet Provincial Board who asked me to orient them on the tree, I mentioned that it was not only important to conserve and propagate the tree but to protect it from exploiters. The university will help us on this item aside from doing the laboratory work on the potential of the tree to replace diesel and gasoline as fuel.

Before we arrived at our research results, I approached some government institutions for help but they gave me the cold shoulder. In fact, one institution-- an agricultural university--, to my consternation, is trying to duplicate our efforts.

On February 23, I will divulge to a group of top agribusiness companies (the Management Assn. of the Philippines), in Makatai the efforts done on the tree. This group wants to support a national conservation and production program for the petroleum nut. On March 7, I and representatives from University of Tennessee will hold a press conference and explain what we intend to do with our joint efforts and the results.

We will keep you updated and I trust our efforts will redown into helping our brothers and sisters in rural areas in the Cordillera region, and in other parts of the country, especially our farmers and of course in protecting our ecosystms and our indigenous resource properties and rights.

Michael A. Bengwayan

Petroleum Nut To be Tested on Different Engines

My group PINE TREE, the Cordillera Ecological Education, Training, Research and Information Center which is doing research on petroleum nut as an alternative sustainable fuel will be testing the petroleum nut oil on different diesel engines by May this year. This has become final as PINE TREE forged a formal working agreement with the University of The University of Tennessee
Department of Plant Sciences and the Dr. Neal Stewart Lab. The purpose is to 1) establish the extent and potential of the tree's oil as fuel and 2) to protect the tree from biopirates.

Michael

Home Garden, How to Do It by Dr. Mike in the Philippines

Home Garden, How to Do It by Dr. Mike in the Philippines

Traditional home gardens in northern Philippines range from 20 to 100 square meters. Planted normally are a mixture of sweet potato, yam, corn, beans, and a tree or two of avocado, pomelo, and guava.

Sounds good but not so good. It is important to have a plan in developing a home garden. These tips can help you:

A. In the garden,
1. Consider where the sun rises from because you should not plant crops that will shade other crops. Do storey planting where shorter plants are fully exposed to sunlight before the taller ones. (eg. pechay, eggplants, corn). Thus, crop orientation is important.

2. Look at your soil. Does it need more fertilizer?. Reddish to brownish soils indicate lack of NPK nutrients. if you don't know how to get soil sample, the most appropriate thing to do is increase your NPK levels. What will you use? Use organic fertilizer for basal application. If you intend to plant green leafy vegetables, use compost made out from nitrogen fixing plants and trees (eg. centrosima, caliandra, alnus). If you will plant fruit-bearing veggies or tuber-producing crops, increase potassium and phosphorus basal fertilizer.

It is also important to know if your soil needs to be watered regularly or not. How will you know? Get a handful of soil from your tilled garden, close your fist on it until you make a lump, raise your hand and drop it on the ground. If it does not break freely, your soil is too soggy, you don't need to water every other day. But if the soil breaks freely into many parts, then your soil is too dry, water every other day.

Now examine your soil. Do you have earthworms, century bugs and tiny critters/ if yes, you have a good soil. If you don't see anything moving or crawling, you do a damn "dead soil", that's not too good.

3. Protecting your plant is of utmost important. But remember, if you have the right to produce, you have the responsibility to produce safe and nutritious crops. Always consider the need to make the environment safe and clean and the rights of consumers. Never try to poison both. Ordinarily, the main pests of vegetables are slugs, snails and caterpillars (of many different insects), are the worst enemies.

To rid of slugs and snail especially in your seedbeds, put a cup of beer in a can and place it at the edge or rim of your seedbed. These attracts the pests and fall into the can. In the morning, dispose the pests. For caterpillars, put 15 to 20 cigarette butts in a liter of water and let them stay there for a week. The nicotene and tar of the cigarette butt mixes with the water eventually. Use this to spray against caterpillars.

Okay guys, more next time so drop by.

Michael the Gardener

Crisphead Losses to Romaine or Cos Lettuce

The unfortunate typhoon events that caused massive flooding and landslides in Benguet and Cordillera region Philippines forced PINE TREE to adjust its project on organic vegetables. of the fifteen young men that were to be trained eleven backed out because they had to go and help their families.

Because PINE TREE was helping victims and evacuees, it involved instead 12 young mothers in its training program. With the advent of Christmas and the need to raise immediate cash to help the family victims, the trainees planted two kinds of lettuce--crisphead and romaine.

The harvest on the crisphead variety suffered marketing problems because smuggled Chinese crisphead found its way to the local market. the romaine lettuce sold well however.

Growing organic Romaine Lettuce

A Reprint from PINE TREE's Newsletter
Growing organic Romaine Lettuce
By Emmanuel Arañas, PINE TREE Staff and Trainee

Organic vegetables can be grown in a small area or containers such as garden boxes and pots. Last October, we at PINE TREE sowed romaine lettuce seeds in pots. The seeds were from our seed bank. We used soil that was fertilized by vermicast, or the so-called worm poop. These are the castings of the African night crawlers. They are rich in nutrients that improve soil fertility which in turn help the lettuces’ growth.

Moreover, the lettuce pots were placed where repellant and nitrogen-fixing plants are to protect them from pests and diseases. We harvested some of these organic lettuces in the first week of December. This proves that nutritious and healthy vegetables can be produced in your own home.

When I was an agriculture student in college, they taught us organic gardening but the vegetables were being sprayed with pesticides so I knew the produce were not really organic. And I have learned from our director, Dr Michael Bengwayan that organic farming in most areas in La Trinidad cannot be practiced because of the chemical farming methods that have been done over the years. He said that the soil has become acidic and the pest that the farmers repelled from their farms will infest the organic gardens that are in close proximity.

PINE TREE have been growing and promoting organic vegetables since it started. And I only learned how to grow them when I became a PINE TREE staff. I got to learn zero chemical treatment and the minimal use fertilizers in gardening. I am very lucky to be with Dr Bengwayan’s staff because I am learning a lot. And this is one of the things why I am proud to be with PINE TREE.