Rolando R Andres & The Beauty Of TH-82

MANILA: On Wednesday, 21 September 2016, with my Lumix FZ100 camera, we visited Rolly Andres' hybrid rice farm in the village of Cabaritan in San Manuel, Pangasinan and this is what we saw: tillers full of rich green-yellowing rice panicles that we estimated to yield about 10 tonnes/ha. To be harvested 09 October, or 18 days from then. That visit was a little after mid-day, the wrong time to take photographs. I decided to visit the farm again early this morning, Thursday, 22 September, at just past 0600 hours, because I knew the images would be much better. As you can see. It so happened that it rained the night before, so the air was clean and the leaves had drops of water on them, perfect for close-ups. What you're looking at is only 1 of 300 shots I took.

Rolly's source of seeds was the Municipal Agriculture Office of San Manuel, via Danielida Sabado, technician; she gave Rolly 15 kg of TH-82, worth P4,500. Oh dear! That's P300/kg. Expensive. Yes, but hybrid seeds are great multipliers. So, the poor farmer canafford that if only he thinks of his farming as a business and not simply a way of living with no way out.

This is what Jardine Distribution says about TH-82, which was developed by Seedworks International and packed by US Agriseeds (jardinedistribution.com):

TH-82 is a breakthrough hybrid rice variety that can potentially double the yield of conventional inbred varieties. TH-82 was developed using true-to-type tropical parent lines making it more suitable to the tropical conditions in the Philippines. TH-82 produces more sturdy tillers that are not prone to lodging despite the longer panicles and greater number of filled grains. Tolerance to insect pests and diseases (are) desirable (traits) of TH-82. Quality of rice from TH-82 likewise provides better returns due to its high milling recovery and high headrice recovery. Milled rice from TH-82 (possesses) good aroma and cooked rice has a desirable taste.

In Rolly's TH-82 farm, I myself estimated a yield of 10 tonnes to the hectare, or 200 cavans. In the latest report from the Foreign Agricultural Service of the US Department of Agriculture, the average yield of rice in the Philippines is shown at about 4 tonnes/ha, similar to that of Thailand (pecad.fas.usda.gov). 4 tonnes is 80 cavans; so, Rolly's yield will be at least 3 times that of the average Filipino farmer's yield from his inbred or conventional variety.

I said "Wow!" and took 300 shots of Rolly's rich rice field; you can view the photo album at Facebook here: facebook.com/frank.a.hilario). Really, TH-82 is suitable to tropical Philippines. It's beautiful.

"TH-82 produces more sturdy tillers that are not prone to lodging..." Yes, you can see in those standing tillers at Rolly's farm. And there's a story behind this one.

Rolly is a member of the Nagkaisa Multi-Purpose Cooperative where I am a board member; he frequently visits our Danggay office in Asingan and asks questions. He is an experienced local rice seed grower, yet his mind is still open to more learning.

Last June, I was talking to him about my many ideas on, among other things, all things being equal, how to increase yield by spacing the seedlings wide apart, square planting, either 20 cm x 20 cm or 25 cm x 25 cm. I got this from my reading on the system of rice intensification (SRI) that even IRRI is recommending for farmers to try. I have been writing about SRI for years, the first essay published 8 years ago, in 2008 yet (see "The Family Planner. Plan With Your Best Science, Please!" 22 April 2008, Primate Change, blogspot.com).

Rolly is in good company. The wisdom of square planting comes from the SRI of Henri Laulanié who developed SRI when he was assigned in Madagascar and worked actively with poor farmers to improve their farming results, from 1961 to 1995. A Jesuit priest, Fr Laulanié was also an agronomist. Today, SRI is being propagated all over the tropical world by Cornell University, led by Professor Norman Uphoff, who is the leader of Cornell U's SRI International Network & Resources Center. For his advocacy and refinements of SRI, Olam International, a leading agribusiness concern operating in 55 countries, has awarded Uphoff its first Olam International Prize for Innovation in Food Security (15 March 2016, olamgroup.com).

For Rolly, I drew on blank paper so many squares and, pointing to the intersections of the lines where the hills would be, explained how wide each seedling can occupy when it grows so that it can produce many roots and many tillers and, therefore, higher yield per hill. I saw that Rolly was intently listening. I did not know he would apply what he had learned from me at once.

Yesterday and today, we saw his farm in the village of Cabaritan in San Manuel, and I found that he had followed my advice, transplanting at a spacing of 25 cm x 25 cm using his own planting frame. He said when his neighbors saw how wide apart the seedlings were, they laughed and said, "Sayang ti dalus." Translation: "Cleaning was wasted," that is, the other farmers looked at the field clean of weeds and saw that it was not maximized in terms of a high population of seedlings, as his Farmer's Practice. They implied that Rolly would get only so much yield for having wasted planting space.

If those farmers only knew that biologically, the wider distance of planting encourages the proliferation of tillers in each seedling or hill. If they only knew that the number of tillers in each hill is the factor that determines your yield, all things being equal. With Farmer's Practice, the transplanters (people) stick on the mud 2 or more seedlings per hill, and the distancing is happen-what-may. Either they are thinking that the more seedlings growing there, the higher the yield – or they are not thinking at all. It's the tillers that count. TH-82 is "high tillering with wide green and erect leaves" (Jardine, as cited). You can see in Rolly's rice field those wide green and erect leaves that have been absorbing more sunlight, resulting in more grains per tiller. Higher yield, higher income.

And how do I know all that? I'm an alumnus of the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture (now UP Los Baños), and by observing and widely reading have been studying myself further how to improve Farmer's Practice in the Philippines.

When Rolly's rice began bearing fruit, the field showed that the more panicles the hills produced, the more grains the farmer could expect to harvest. And the neighboring farmers said, "Ag-hybrid-ak metten no sumaruno!" ("Next time, I will plant hybrid!")

"Tolerance to insect pests and diseases are likewise desirable traits..." In that field, I saw only 2 small tillers with dry leaves; otherwise the sea I saw was healthy grains, grains, grains.

And TH-82 promises high milling recovery and high headrice recovery. There is also a promise of good aroma and desirable taste when cooked. Can't wait to taste Rolly's rice this October!

Calling the attention too of Jardine Distribution Inc, which is a member of CropLife Philippines. To all, I'm sharing you this piece of good news from Rolly Andres because I have been thinking about how Farmer's Practice can be improved in terms of technologies and systems so as to decrease costs and increase returns. Farming is, or must be, a business, but most farmers don't think like that. I have that overall impression based on my experiences as a consultant for an extension project with the Department of Agrarian Reform and as a member of the Board of the Nagkaisa Multi-Purpose Cooperative in my hometown of Asingan in Eastern Pangasinan.

If Rolly Andres of San Manuel, Pangasinan gets only 160 cavans (8,000 kilos or 8 tonnes) and sells at P18.67/kilo (September price), he gets a gross of P168,000. Less P4,500 for seeds, P12,000  for 12 bags of fertilizer... let's say, less a total cost of P68,000, that's a net income of P100,000 to a hectare and, already, that's worth a king's ransom in these islands! Remember, we are in the countryside; that's a net of a shouting P25,000 a month for 4 months or 120 days.

Beautiful. Suppose we are right and Rolly gets 200 cavans? He then nets P186,000, or P37,000 more, the price of an excellent laptop computer plus a second and bigger monitor like mine, a ViewSonic LED, which I think Rolly is thinking of buying – he was asking me about my Lenovo Flex2 touchscreen that I bought at P33,000. He has a daughter studying at Pangasinan State University at its Santa Maria campus that has a College of Agriculture and he was texting her about my upload of those 300 plus shots I took in his TH-82 farm that I posted yesterday on Facebook here, web.facebook.com.

Rolly says he found 15 kilos of TH-82 more than enough for 1 ha using square planting. In fact, I have more recommendations than just square planting. Watch for them in my Danggaynewsmag, its maiden issue hopefully to come out this October. Danggay is dedicated to people who have embarked in their own journey in search of beauty. @

24 September 2016. Essay word count, excluding this line: 1549