EGGPLANT PRODUCTION GUIDE

Anyone can plant eggplant anywhere even in your own backyard. It is one of best vegetable needed in the kitchen. They are favorite ingredients at home or in restaurants to make palatable dish. It is healthy food full of vitamins and minerals. It is also good source of income for farmers.

There is demand of eggplant in the wet market or in bigger supermarket. It can be made into different menu. It is money maker for large-scale production.

Eggplant has taste some people don’t want to eat. It is not nutritious but once it is added into various dishes, the taste becomes different. Ordinary household make a dish with eggs a good breakfast menu on the table along with a cup of coffee.

There are many varieties of eggplants, separated in size, form and color. It may be plain or striped.

Eggplant is best suited in deep loam soil. Select an area where there is good soil condition, elevated place, has nearby irrigation source, has drainage around the upraised beds. It should be expose to sunlight.

The field should be plowed and harrowed alternately 3 times to loosen the soil. Start making upraised beds where the seedlings are to be planted.

Procure good seeds from the agricultural supply or to use seeds directly from ripen eggplants intended for seedling purpose. Soak seeds in water for the duration of 24 hours for high percentage of germination. Select a variety that can adapt to both dry and wet season.

The seeds should be treated first with fungicide to prevent damping off in the seedbed. Water the seedbed occasionally if it showed sign of dryness.

The seeds should be planted to the seedbed first until ready to be planted in the upraised beds. Do not expose seedbed from the rain, direct exposure to sun, windy environment to prevent being damaged from weather condition while germinating.

As soon as the seedlings are ready for transplanting, start pulling out the seedlings in the seedbeds for transfer to the field. Be sure that the height of the seedlings is 10 centimeters. The distance in rows should be 55 centimeters x 55 centimeters. In one hectare, it can accommodate 500 grams of seedlings.

Make pre-planting application of complete fertilizer (14-14-14) of NPK essential to growth of matured plants. Additional application of nitrogen is needed especially when the plant is in full bloom during flowering stage.

During wet season, the plant should be planted in upraised beds to have enough drainage. Too much rainfall will affect its vegetative state and flowering formation.

Regular irrigation during dry month will help eggplant to continue to bear fruits. During rainy season, there should have enough drainage to remove excess water around the plants.  Excessive rainfall may affect the growth of plants affecting continues fruiting.

Remove the terminal growing point as soon as the plant started to established. Such action will induce lateral branching. If the cultivar grows long, support is needed to hold them in place. You can use bamboo slats and string to bind it closely to the support.

Water the plant during dry period to keep enough moisture to the soil. Watering will prevent the leaf to fall off and buds to flower immaturely.

Keep the field free of weeds. Remove them manually using gardening hoe but do it carefully not to damage the roots. Keep it clean to avoid pests to harbor in the plants. Continue spot weeding every time another germination of weed is observed. Don’t touch the ground in the latter part of its growing season.

Apply pesticides periodically during growing months especially if the insects insisted to vacate the plants. Apply fungicide to prevent diseases to damage the plants or the fungi that already started destroying the growth of plants.

You can use mulching to the plants to protect the root systems and reduce water loss due to evaporation. It is also helpful to scare away from pests. Plastic mulching can also prevent erosion during the time when there is continues rainfall.

Some eggplant variety can be harvested repeatedly whole year round as long as the environmental condition is favorable to its growth, limited rainfall with enough moisture during dry season. There are varieties that will bear fruits in 2-years time.

Harvest the plants 80 days from transplanting. Pick out matured fruits only and leave smaller ones.

BATAW PRODUCTION GUIDE

The vegetable has wide adaptability to many soil conditions. There are many varieties of bataw. There are bataw that are vines needing trellis for support. Another variety stands erect and not a vine type but bushy with thick foliage. There was variety that can be raised directly to the soil without trellis. Its thick foliage will cover the ground.

The many varieties differed in shape, texture, size of leaves, shape of the flowers, seeds, color of the plants and pod characteristic. It has variety that can tolerate period of drought, flowering time, the condition of the seedling (vigor), period of maturity, resistance to pests and diseases, sensitivity to day-length and the viability of the seeds in many type of soil condition. There are varieties suitable in lowland and upland.

The plant grows fast. Because of its dense foliage, it is best controller for the growth of weeds.

Prepare the land thoroughly. Plow and harrow the field 2 to 3 times to break loss the soil. Plant the seeds directly to the soil in furrows. Plant 2 to 3 seeds per hill. Keep maximum distance each hill as the plant will grow robust and has thick foliage.

Let it grow freely in the soil to cover the land. It is best to suppress weed germination and frequency of weeding. No need to do periodic weeding as the plant control the emergence of weeds. Spot weeding can only be done to isolated portion if the weeds in the field persist.

Most often, there’s no need to apply fertilizer as the plant can adapt to any soil type. But in case the plant will not grow healthy despite its resistance to poor soil then apply periodic fertilization to the plant.

In case of pest infestation, spray the foliage with pesticides for the pests to keep away from the foliage to damage the leaves, flowers and fruits.

The plants can tolerate diseases. But in the event they are severely affected by the disease, remove or uproot the affected plants from the good ones to avoid spread of bacterial infection.

Harvest the young pods regularly. Avoid the pod to mature as it can no longer good to sell to the market.

There are many uses of bataw:

-The dry weight of seeds has crude protein containing high level of iron.

-Its young pod is best serve as table vegetables.

-Dried seeds are good alternative for snack foods, cooked or eaten directly. It was used to process bean cake.

-The leaves and flowers are cooked and eaten.

-Sprouts are good for palatable menu.

-The bean hay serves as forage of many animals.

-It was used as silage.

-The green manure serves as fertilizer.

-It was used in the prevention of soil erosion because of its thick foliage.

-It is good cover crop for plantation.

-It has the ability to serve as nitrogen-fixing crop.

SUNFLOWER PRODUCTION GUIDE

The plant can be grown mostly in all types of soil in a dry condition. The yield can greatly improve if irrigation is used during the formation of the bud and during the end of the flowering period.

It can be planted any month of the year but best in January. It is harvestable after 4 months time. It can produce a higher yield if planted in fertile soil and have a better drainage system.

Plant sunflower in a single row 70 cm from the next row. You can also use a double row 45 centimeters spacing between rows and 1 meter every two rows. The depth is 5 centimeters in planting the seeds.

In one hectare land, it needs an estimated 15 kilograms. The quality of the seed should be given to attain a 90% germination rate. Cultivate the land one or two times. Fertilization can increase production and obtain a higher yield. Using NP combination of 120-120 or 120-160 is mostly recommended.

Use a furrow irrigation method to avoid water logging. Do the necessary pest control measures to ensure protection from pests. Proper pesticides application is needed. Some of the diseases noted are damping off, bacterial wilts, leaf spot rust. Proper application of fungicide is needed for better result.

Harvesting can be done by cutting sunflower heads. Use scythe in harvesting.

MUNGBEAN PRODUCTION GUIDE

It can be grown during wet and dry seasons except in areas with heavy rainfall. The plants can thrive well in any soil type but yields are better from deep, well-drained and fertile soils. Acidic soils affect the growth of the plants due to lacking of essential nutrients.

Practice complete land preparation in an upland condition. Plow it twice and harrow twice with four passings in one harrowing after plowing. Make furrows 60 and 70 centimeters apart for the dry and wet season.

In the lowland areas, you can plant the mungbeans after the harvest of rice. No need for land preparation in order to conserve the needed moisture before the planting. See to it that the areas for planting is not weedy enough.

Plant in rows to make weeding easier. Space the plant in rows about 55 to 70 centimeters. Fertilization will depend on the kind of soil and the presence of required nutrients. It is recommended to apply fertilizer based on 30-30-30 kilograms of NPK per hectare.

It does not require any irrigation if planted during wet season. Removed all weeds from the field for at least 1-1/2 weeks during emergence of seedlings. You can do handweeding during the first week when the seedling emerged. Do the hilling-up in the third to fourth week. Spot weeding is necessary to remove fast growing weeds. Maybe 2-3 weedings is needed to get a good yield.

They were proned to beanfly damaged and aphids and other pests as the plant matures. Assess the damaged and do the necessary measures by the application of insecticides. If diseases hit the plants then remove the infected plants. Apply fungicides to control disease occurrence.

Harvest mungbean by hand as soon as 80% of the pods are fully dried. Harvest it 60 days from crop emergence. Harvest 2nd time 15 days after the first priming.

Dry pods in the sun then thresh by beating the pods inside a sack with a wooden stick. Dry the seeds further for 3 days until it can reach a moisture level of 12 percent to facilitate longer storage.