‘Golden kuhol’ can be a friend

Did you know that the golden apple snail (GAS), popularly known as "golden kuhol", can live underground for more than half a year?

"During the dry season, the snail buries itself and goes to sleep for more than six months," noted the Philippine Rice Research Institure (PhilRice), which has been intensively studying the life cycle of GAS, one of the major destructive pests attacking young rice plants.

The snail, added PhilRice, wakes up and surfaces during the planting season when the irrigation water penetrates the soil.

PhilRice has observed that the voracious snail prefers newly transplanted rice seedlings and soft parts of a plant.

Now comes an innovative woman farmer who has developed a technique of outwitting the golden snail.

Luz Lozada, of barangay San Isidro, Hagonoy, Davao del Sur, reported that she only irrigated her field three days after transplanting. The water is not so high so that the "kuhol" buried in the soil will not be activated.

Having learned from PhilRice training courses that "kuhol" eats rice seedlings up to 15 days after transplanting, she has established a standing level of 3-5 centimeters in her field only on the seventh day after transplanting.

By then, the rice plant begins to harden. The activated golden snail instead opts to eat the young and soft weeds in the field.

"Because of this," Ronan Zagado of PhilRice reported, "farmers in Hagonoy have reduced the cost of producing rice. Now, they don’t use herbicides anymore, the cost of which is almost half that of growing rice. Most important, they have learned that GAS is no pest at all." – Rudy A. Fernandez