Want to double the yield of your rice farm? Try the wood vinegar technique.
Wood vinegar is a liquid produced from a composting mixture of wood, coconut shell, bamboo, grass, and other plants. It can be used as pesticide, insecticide, or soil conditioner.
But for Francisco Riman and Joselito Riman--a father and son tandem of rice farmers in Naic, Cavite--the use of wood vinegar or mokusaku technology resulted in the significant increase of their palay harvest.
A statement for the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Sunday, Feb. 28 bared that Francisco and Joselito tried the mokusaku technology on their separate one-hectare farms wherein they ended up harvesting 90 and 89 cavans, respectively.
On their separate half-a-hectare farms using traditional farming, they only managed to harvest 40 and 37 cavans of palay, respectively, DAR said.
Farmer-scientist Danny Arnes, chairman of the Tres Cruces Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Farmers Association, said that the mokusaku technology can be applied not only to rice farming but even to vegetable gardens where it could help produce quality vegetables.
The department spearheaded the use of mokusaku on two separate one-hectare demonstration farms to encourage local farmers to apply the same technology to their farms and even in their backyard vegetable gardens.
Cavite provincial agrarian reform program officer James Arthur Dubongco said the project is being implemented under the P1.425-million Climate Resilient Farm Productivity Support Project (CRFPSP) of the province.