Zac B. Sarian
If you visit Agrilink 2005 which ends this afternoon at the World Trade Center - Metro Manila, you might want to know about a machine that converts old newspapers into egg trays. If so, better look for Jose Abellar of Abellar Equipment Co.
He has a compact machine that can make 360 to 400 egg trays in just one hour out of newspapers, cardboard and similar paper products. Called Arbor T360, the machine is just 3.4 meters long, 1.3 meters wide and 1.9 meters high. It comprises of a forming tank, pulping tank, pulp storage tank, water tank and compressed air tank.
To produce 360 to 400 egg trays in one hour, one needs only 25 kilos of paper materials and 90 liters of fresh water. Two to three persons are needed to operate it.
Abellar has other livestock and poultry equipment, including a dressing machine, heating pads for pigs, egg sorting machine and others.
NEW AMPALAYA. And if you want to learn about a new ampalaya from East-West Seed Co., look for Dr. Mary Ann Sayoc or any other technical staff of the company at its booth in Agrilink.
Dr. Sayoc is particularly excited about their new ampalaya hybrid they have christened Bonito. This is a cross of the native Ilocos ampalaya and the long variety.
She says it is the perfect variety for pinakbet. It is only about four inches long, each weighing 80 to 100 grams. What’s more, it is very productive, according to her. It yields higher (20 to 25 tons per hectare) than their Galaxy hybrid and also sells at a higher price in the market (
R50 per kilo right now in Nueva Ecija).
Harvesting starts at 45 days after planting and will remain productive for the next three months or even longer. It also produces a lot of shoots which Ilocanos love to make into salad or as pinakbet ingredient. Bonito is also claimed to be resistant to the malady called "namamarako."
CORN IN SAN JOSE DEL MONTE. At the Agrilink, we also met Don Paz, a golf course consultant who has turned to corn farming.
He has been planting corn on about a hundred hectares of the Puyat property (Newtown) in San Jose del Monte City in Bulacan. The more than 300-hectare property has been lying idle for more than 30 years for one reason or another. One day, he thought of making the idle land productive.
So far, he has grown five crops of Pioneer hybrid corn. He has been averaging 8.35 tons per hectare and selling the same at an average of
R8.65 a kilo. He does not have a problem selling his harvest because there are so many feedmills in Bulacan. One is just a kilometer away from his growing area.
It is profitable to grow corn, according to Paz. It costs him
R5 to produce and market a kilo of grains.
Irrigation is one big factor behind the high yield of his corn. He has a 5-hectare pond from which he pumps water to irrigate his crop. The pond is also used to raise tilapia.
Remember also to visit the booth of the Manila Bulletin at the Agrilink. There you will be able to buy the old issues of Agriculture Magazine since it was started in October 1997.
Try also to visit the booths of the organic producers. They are in full force.
