Can You Grow Sugarcane Solely By Organic Fertilizer? CaneCo In The Antilles Archipelago Shows The World How!
I am reading a very happy report by ANN published by CaneCo in
its website: “Trash Farming – Simple But Effective!” (Author Not Named, 21 Dec 2020, CaneCo,
caneco.gd).
CaneCo is located in Grenada in the Antilles Archipelago. ANN says:
The concept of trash
farming – or simply put mulching – has been around for a long time in the sugar
cane industry and scientifically studied since around the 1950s. It’s only in
recent decades though that sugarcane producers have really started paying attention
to preserving soil fertility this way.
In the Philippines, UPLB professor Teodoro C Mendoza says rice straw is still only used as feed
for cattle, not recycled in the field; for sugarcane, 36% of trash is returned
to the soil (“Enhancing Crop Residues Recycling in the Philippine Landscape,” uploaded
03 May 2015, downloadable from ResearchGate,
researchgate.net).
About trash farming in rice, I have a personal story – that
happened after I discovered Faulkner’s books. That time, my father Dionisio was preparing our 1 ha of land
for rice in Domanpot in our hometown Asingan, Pangasinan, and he had engaged
the services of a big Howard tractor with rotavator. This was my chance to be
innovative. Inspired by what I learned from Faulkner, I ordered the Howard
operator to set to zero the cutting of the blades, just run them over the
field, thank you very much!
Some 15 or 20 years later, my brother-in-law Enso Casasos, who was present as our
farmhand and heard & saw everything during that Domanpot rotavator episode,
told me in Ilocano (I’m translating freely now): “Manong, do you remember what
you told the Howard operator? He was smiling in one corner of his mouth!” (“umis-isem
isuna ti bangbangir!”)
Why because the tractor was only rolling along on the field,
barely consuming oil, not digging the soil. What the Howard operator did
not know was that the rotavator blades were actually cutting the soil and
the weeds into nice pieces and mixing them at the same time in one
rotary motion – not part of learning how to drive a tractor with a rotavator,
is it? This actually and effectively and automatically
laid a layer of trash all over the field – organic matter at your prayer request!
I now call the process “Rotavator Organic WEALth –
Weeds-Enriched Automatic Layer of Trash to Trigger Terrestrial Health.” (See my
16 Feb 2022 essay, “For A Happier & Healthier Habitat Philippines! Triple A
For Agriculture,” Towards A New Eden, Blogspot.com).
Rotavator
Organic WEALth is what I can offer rice farmers and sugarcane growers, among
other farmers in the Philippines and the rest of the world – and it is what I
can proudly demonstrate to CaneCo in the Antilles Archipelago!@517
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