AgreeCulture Today

If you’re asking what are weeds, this article from Yami No Matsuei’s Hangout might help you.

Weeds are important component of the agroecosystem. They always grow with crops and its economic impact is greatest in agriculture. It is an important factor to consider in the management of land and water resources and dictate many of the crop production practices and management decision in growing crops.

We can defined a weed as a plant unwanted at a particular time and place and can do more harm than good under such time and place. The concept of a weed is man-made. One man’s crop may be another man’s weed. Of the 300,000 species of angiosperms, 10% 30,000 species behave as weed 99% of the time.

Weeds can be characterized to have a rapid vegetative growth, reproduce rapidly and mature early, be very prolific and produce plenty of seeds, have the ability to survive and adapt to adverse conditions, be adapted to crop competition, and whose propagules possess dormancy or can be induced to become dormant under favorable conditions.

The last characteristic of the weed is the reason why most of the empty lots we see today are populated with weeds. One year of planting would equal to seven years of weeding.

This article is about some interesting characteristics of insects I got from Yami No Matsuei’s Hangout

There are 725,000 insect species recorded in 1954. This is three times more that all other animals combined. The recent number of insect species known today is close to a million. Insects have lived on earth for about 350 million years compared to a less that 2 million years for man. They evolved and developed unusual morphological features, habit or behavior and unique characteristics to survive in any type of habitat.

Here are some insect characteristics that made them a successful group of arthropods:

1. Insects have hard and impervious body cover which is called the exoskeleton.

2. Insects possess wings that help them avoid predatory enemies, unfavorable conditions, and in finding food and mate.

3. Insects have high rate of reproduction. They have short developmental period and have high fecundity, meaning, several eggs are being laid by the mother.

4. Insects have a small size. This made them capable to complete development and reproduction with small amount of food.

5. Insects have varied developmental stages and habits.

6. Insects have a great capability of adaptation which allowed them to survive for a very long period of time.

7. Insects have highly varied habits and behavior.

These characteristics have made the insects of today survive millions of years ago.

If you want to know how weeds are classified, you can read this article i got from Yami No Matsuei’s Hangout

Weeds are classified according to their similarities and differences which are effective in formulating an effective control program. These are according to their: a) Life Cycle, b) Gross Morphological Features, c) Body Texture, d) Habit-Manner of Growth, and e) Habitat.

According to their Life Cycle, weeds are classified as annual, or perennial. Annual weeds complete their life cycle in one season and reproduce mainly by seeds while perennial weeds live for more that one season and reproduce vegetatively and by seeds. They can either be simple perennials that reproduce only by seeds or creeping perennials that reproduce by seeds and by vegetative propagules.

Weeds are classified according to their Morphological Features can be grass, sedge, or broadleaf. Grasses have stems called culms that are cylindrical and has has a well defined nodes and internodes. Their leaves arise alternately in two rows. Ligules can be observed in grasses. Sedges on the other hand have triangular culms and does not have ligules. Their nodes and internodes are indistinct which are located at the basal part of the culm. Broadleaved weeds are characterized as having expanded leaves. They can either be monocots or dicots.

We classify weeds as herbaceous, woody, or vine according to the general appearance of their stems. Their habit of growth can be erect-those that have an upwight growth, prostrate-lying flat on the ground, or twining-those that are climbing or clinging for support.

Weeds can be aquatic-those living in water, terrestrial-grows on land, or aerial-or epiphytes growing in air or attached to trees or other support, according to their habitat.

Beans wrote this interesting post on :Organic Vegetables-Are They Really Expensive?

It talks about how come organic vegetables are sold at a higher price? This might give you an idea why:

“The high prices of vegetables sold in the market seem to be very alarming especially in an agricultural country like the Philippines. It is an irony to think that Filipinos are buying expensive vegetables in their markets and that imported vegetables are even sold at a lesser price. With the high prices of pesticides and fertilizers, using them on small scale would be more expensive and that is why vegetable products imported are sold at a lower price here in the country is because these vegetables products are cheaper to produce outside the country. What shocked me today is when our professor told us how vegetables are sold at high prices but a Filipino farmer is at the borders of the poverty line.

Organically produced farm products are sold in the market 30-40% higher than the normal selling price of these vegetables. Why? The reason might be the law of supply and demand. There is a great demand for organically produced vegetables but there are only few producers which explains the its high selling market price. For organic farmers who previously employ inorganic practices, they are expected to have a 40% reduce in their farm input. This means that even if a 20% decrease in output may be observed after the transition from inorganic to organic, still, there will be a positive net income. So if this is the scenario, we should be expecting our organic farmers to be wealthy now. Imagine buying organic malunggay (Moringa oleifera) sold at Php60 per kilo, Sweet potato tops sold at Php40 per kilo and so on. The point is that, organically produced vegetables are high value and it should follow that the farmers should be earning a lot from it.

The question now is, why is it that this scenario cannot be seen in the local farmers? Our professor accounted that when they visited a certain part of the Philippines, he was able to interview an organic farmer that plants carrots. The farmer told our professor how his carrot farming proceeds after harvest. He told that he has to walk at least 2hours to his farm in located in an upland area and comes down to from his farm carrying 40 kilos of carrots on his back. This is how his life is. This did not shock me but what made me stop for a while is upon hearing that they are selling their carrots to the middle men at Php5 per kilo. That’s right! they are selling them at Php5 per kilo. Even a one day’s worth of unlimited text is more expensive than the organically produced carrots. Then our professor tracked the carrots and found out that these are being sold at Greenbelt during the “Green Day” when organically produced vegetables are sold in markets. The sad thing is that, those carrots bought at Php5 per kilo as farm gate price are now being sold at Php60 per kilo. And this is very ironic and sad for the part of the farmers. Who gets the benefits? The middle men do.”

A professor of mine in one of my courses told the class that Agriculture is a way of life. It is a part of a society’s culture and therefore there are some practices that would have been very effective but the people just somehow do not use the technology because of culture. He assured the class that this is true and this is happening.

I can say that giving information is not commanding the people to do what you told them. It is just that you are giving them information which you think is better and it is up to them to decide if they want to do it. So the have to agree on what you are saying before they practice it. Or they could try it for some time and if they see good results, then they can finally agree to what you say. Again, technology specially in agriculture is location specific. You are never sure that if a technology works in this particular area, then it can work on all areas.

What I will be posting here are agriculture related articles whether new or old technologies practiced by local farmers on different areas of the world that are proven to work. I will also try to post some methods on sustainable farming practices as taught in our lectures and some issues concerning on agriculture.

Agreement in Culture should always go hand in hand for an effective information dissemination and aceeptance of new technologies in agriculture.