Monday, August 15, 2011

The use of bamboo tube for pepper establishment

zie, 2011
This technique might not be sophisticated, it is a local wisdom indeed. It does help farmers to have successful pepper transplanting in the mulched soil bed.  Farmers practice this method as they always find that their peppers often suffer from transplanting shocks.  I would presumed that  pepper seedlings successfully have field establishment as the bamboo tube protects the young  plant from heat stress, or from the air borne pathogen, or from the wind stress. Anyway, this local wisdom is practiced by many farmers. They also said that the tube could also serve as ‘canal’ to provide supplementary fertilizers. However, further research should be established to determine the benefits of bamboo tube during the pepper establishment after transplanting.  

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Animal worker in Palm-oil Plantation

Here is another local wisdom in agricultural practices. The use of cow as animal workers is increasingly introduced in several palm-oil plantations in Bengkulu to reduce the harvesting costs and manage the hilly topographic. The use of cow is very smart indeed, as it could contribute to the efforts of palm-oil industry to develop a zero waste policy in the plantation areas. (Picture taken by Dwatmaji, 2005).