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MANILA: Why study roots? Because the invisible half of the plant is as important as the visible part. Because "physiologically vigorous root systems are as essential as vigorous shoots for successful plant growth," PJ Kramer says, "because root and shoot growth are so interdependent that one cannot succeed without the other" ( dspace.udel.edu ). Because, DB Kell says, deeper roots give "much greater steady-state trapping of carbon, and also of nutrients and water, leading to improved drought and flooding tolerance, greater biomass yields, and better soil structure and steady-state carbon sequestration" (2011, nipccreport.org ). More biomass formed, more nutrients and water trapped, more tolerance to drought and flooding, higher yields, and better soils. Today I chanced upon Neil Palmer's 1.5-year old report of a high anticipation for a successful genetic modification of IRRI's rice variety IR64 that will produce deep roots and establish itself wel

MANILA: Look at the image; you are looking at the infertile soil dug right next to the fertile soil with weeds. (Image posterized from my original photograph taken Monday, 02 February 2015 at 0520 hours with my Lumix FZ100 digital camera.) The green and the grey have to fuse to make a fertile soil. The soil cannot be simply its basic components of sand, silt and clay. It cannot be bare; it must be enriched so that it can relate productively to your crops, trees and animals. Otherwise, you have an infertile soil, which does not carry the message of life. Is the mind of your candidate President that of an infertile soil? If your candidate President cannot reduce pronouncements and announcements to a fundamental and universal message, your candidate has a problem! This one cannot relate to the people; this one does not carry the voice of the people. Your candidate President must be thinking New Testament. Earlier, I was thinking of titling this as "New Testament, New Organic"

MANILA: Catch me if you can! Yes, I said purposely, "Caching the rain." I did not say, "Catching the rain." But in a little while, I will be showing how you yourself can be: Catching the rain first. Caching the rain next. Cashing in on the rain finally. Climate change is bringing us El Niño this year and, according to our weather bureau, Pagasa (Hope), we can expect erratic wet days as well as erratic dry (ANN, 11 March 2015, web.pagasa.dost.gov.ph ). So we will not hope but we can expect hot and cold days unlike before. How do you catch the rain for your crops? Maybe not you but the rest of the world has been learning from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) about water harvesting using little dams and catch basins. This is the Adarsha success story of which I have written many times in my 7 books published by ICRISAT (try my essay, "Africa Feeding Africa. 'Africa needs CGIAR' & The African Equation,&

MANILA: Date, 05 June 2015; the image says there are "10 Things You Can Do On This Environment Day" ( timesofindia.indiatimes.com ). Yes, but those who conceptualized that logo were thinking parts and not wholes; "10 Things You Can Do..." is atomistic and not holistic thinking. It tells me that the United Nations itself has a bad attitude towards the world's environment – it recommends what you can do today, tomorrow is your problem. And the exhortation is insufficient: "Celebrate World Environment Day this 5 June! Every Year. Everywhere. Everyone." One day once a year. Then you can forget about the environment the rest of the year. Even the theme this year speaks of separate lives: "Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume With Care" ( unep.org ). There is no community, only separate imaginings. 7 billion environments. Anyway, let's give them the benefit of the doubt; what again are the 10 things you can do today for the environment

MANILA: You're looking at my original photograph of a ricefield, taken 17 May 2015 at 1036 hours along the TPLEX highway; I'm sure it's in Pangasinan because I can see Mt Balungao in the distance. As an agriculturist who happens to be a teacher, I say you are looking at 2 big mistakes in farming. The image shows furrows of water and rows of rice stalks dried up. I don't know what the farmer is up to, but whatever it is, it's a waste of resources, including time. This is too much water being lost to the clouds, and too much plant nutrients being lost to the air. Earlier, the rice stalks could have been recycled into the soil, as in green manuring, and they could have given back much of what they had taken from the soil in the form of rice grains, the farmer's harvest. This is clean-culture agriculture , and the ultimate source of knowledge for this for every Filipino farmer must have been the University of the Philippines' College of Agriculture that was esta

MANILA: You're looking at what I now call disadvantage farming . That is one of those things that make me cry; that's white and black smoke rising from ricefields set afire as seen from the expressway – I took the picture purposely to include a passing van to point to the burning bush of white – and I know those farmers are burning away nutrients that should have grown their next crop of rice, because clean-culture agriculture tells them to do it and I suppose nobody is teaching them otherwise. I took this photograph on 28 April 2014 at 1651 hours; I can't pinpoint the province now but, actually, burning rice fields is happening all over Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac, Pangasinan and La Union – been there, seen that.   After yesterday, Wednesday, 03 May 2015 when I blogged about The 6 Hidden Forms Of Water For Life (see my essay, "WILLs," 03 June 2015, WILLs, blogspot.com), today, Thursday, I now have a term to refer to the whole idea; I call it now advantage farming

MANILA: "Rice is life" I remember that being proclaimed by the United Nations as the theme for the International Year of the Rice that it declared in 2004. If rice was the staple food of half of the world's population, the UN was correct. Yesterday, I came to the conclusion that in fact the UN was thinking too narrow, that there is something more basic in human life than rice, and you cannot produce rice without it, while it is true also in none-rice-eating countries: Water is life. And I mean not only including safe water, river water, underground water, sea water, icebergs, snow and clouds. As the image shows, posterized from my original photograph of the Sinapog part of the Chico River in Asingan, Pangasinan, irrigation water is obvious. It's the hidden water that is the secret to successful agriculture in a climate-changing world. No, "Water is life" is not an insight of mine. Already, among others, there is a WaterIsLife.com on Facebook (charity gro