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DURIAN, TOO.There’s also a bumper crop of durian. The trouble is that there seems to be so many varieties with different eating quality. It is very hard to export such fruits because there is no uniformity. The growers believe that the bumper crop should be shipped to Manila and other major cities. Otherwise, the prices in Davao will go down further. That is why they are considering holding a durian festival in Manila this September. The AANI Herbal Garden & Livelihood Center at the Quezon Memorial Circle is one venue being considered.

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BIGNAY LADY. Charita Puentespina, who first became famous for her Waling-waling and other orchids, is into many non-traditional projects for a lady entrepreneur. First, she is very proud of her bignay wine. She has over a thousand bignay trees that are heavily fruiting year after year. This year, she was able to make 5,000 bottles of bignay wine which have been very saleable at R300 per bottle. One lady politician from Manila is said to be a big buyer. Aside from wine, she makes bignay jam which is very nice to use in a cheese cake.

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WHITE CHEESE. And speaking of cheese, Charita also makes very tasty white cheese out of goat’s milk. Oh yes, she is also into commercial raising of goats, mostly Anglo Nubians because they are good milkers. She has over 150 female breeders and 45 of them are in the milkline. Aside from cheese, she makes yoghurt, chocomilk and bottled fresh milk.

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INTO CACAO, TOO. Charita is very excited about her 17,000 cacao trees that she is rehabilitating. She was able to take over a 24-hectare property with coconuts and cacao which used to be neglected. The cacao trees are in the process of rehabilitation but they are already giving her about 15 tons of dry beans. She is making "tablea" out of the beans to add value. Twelve tablets weighing about a hundred grams sell for P30. She is going to produce organic cacao using her own organic fertilizer.

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VERMICULTURE. Charita takes care of African night crawlers to produce vermicompost which she uses to fertilize her cacao trees. The cacao pods are shredded and used as substrate for her earthworms to feed on, in addition of course to her goat manure. The vermicast is more potent as a fertilizer than the unprocessed goat manure. So she has to pass the goat manure through the worms.

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NATURAL DEWORMER. Darwin Tinasas, a marine engineer who is into bigtime goat raising, has observed that the leaves of the tree called Malapapaya is a natural dewormer. Add 5 percent of leaves to the feed and that will deworm the goats. He warns, however, that the dosage should not be more than 5 percent.

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BEWARE OF HIGAD. Bella Cariño, a lady goat raiser from Davao, has a warning to make. Don’t allow your goats to eat forage legumes infested with the green itchy "higad". One of her prized goats succumbed after eating legumes infested with this pest.

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MULBERRY FOR GOATS.Davao goat raisers are turning to mulberry as a new forage crop for their stocks. Darwin Tinasas is propagating a lot of this now. It has been observed that mulberry increases the fat content of the goat’s milk.

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TALK OF THE TOWN. A Bicolano goat raiser is the talk of the town in Davao City. He made the mistake of asking a supposed friend to negotiate for him to buy 10 head of goats from a well-known source from Bansalan. His "friend" told him he got a bargain for P15,000 each. The going price, however, is P10,000 each for the size the Bicolano ordered. That’s according to a member of the Goat Industry Development Council of Davao.