Horticulture Lesson – In Growing Cacao & Coffee, Learn About Native Trees!
The text on the above image says, native trees like narra "Promote growth or biodiversity of the area (and are) food sources for forest animals, more effective in preventing soil erosion, (and) home to birds and other insect predators (that) protect nearby crops. (Also), wildlife, especially endangered species, prefer familiar native trees." Take note: Trees "protect nearby crops."
I am familiar with native & exotic forest trees. I was Editor in Chief of the Forest Research Institute, FORI, 1975 to 1981, and I had to study my Forestry very well – I am a graduate of Agriculture. Naïve about biodiversity, already I was a voracious reader, since Grade 1, more so that I was founder and Editor in Chief of 3 major publications of FORI: Canopy, monthly newsletter; Sylvatrop, quarterly technical journal; and Habitat, quarterly popular journal that I patterned after the American National Geographic. Not only edit, I had to read and write myself. To this Agriculturist, Forestry was an entirely new world for me, and I was happy to explore it.
In the image above, the bottom says: "RAFI – Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc." And I find that RAFI is into not simply reforestation but is into "Bringing Back Forests The Right Way[1]." That is, reforestation with PH native species, which are also good nurse trees for crops like cacao and coffee. Your horticultural lesson.
That news is 7 years old, but we can learn from the past. In FORI, I remember foresters talking and writing excitedly about the exotic mahogany and teak, fast-growing species, and lumbermen gladly planted them in "plantation forests." It turns out that those plantation forests were unseen enemies of reforestation.
"We emphasize real reforestation through native species," says Rowena Bandola-Alensonorin, RAFI's Executive Director for Integrated Development. Miss Rowena says the exotics make the soil acidic, thereby preventing the growth of other species – preventing ecological balance. The exotics are also susceptible to local pests and diseases, like the teaks at the Buhisan Watershed & Forest Reserve in Cebu being attacked by army worms. Exotics also have lower wood density and shorter lifespan. Whereas:
If native trees like bogo, malakawayan, tugas, lanutan and hambabalud, to name a few, are being propagated, they have high resistance to insect and disease attacks. They create different layers of diverse, healthy, and thriving vegetation underneath the canopy, which reduce the tunnel effect of strong winds and double the ability of trees in erosion control.
If for only those, nothing beats the natives!
I'm thinking now of Indai Le Cortes' cacao farm in Bohol. I can see the farm is very sparse with nurse trees. Miss Indai should learn from RAFI's Miss Rowena about native trees preventing insect and disease attacks, and protecting vegetation underneath the canopy, her cacaos, from strong winds. Because their canopies soften the force of raindrops falling, those trees also directly prevent erosion of the soil. And those trees become habitats for insect predators such as bats, birds, friendly insects and parasites – natural pest controllers.
Miss Indai, what else do you want?!@517
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