An excellent organic fertilizer

MANILA, Philippines - “Manure tea” and biological pesticide make a good organic fertilizer that can considerably boost organic fertilizer production.

The technology was developed by the Central Luzon Agriculture and Resources Research and Development Consortium (CLARRDEC) based in the Central Luzon State University (CLSU) in the Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija.

CLARRDEC is one of 14 government regional R&D consortia coordinated by the Los Baños-based Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD).

The technology has been packaged by PCARRD into an information bulletin for the benefit of the vegetable farming sector.

According to CLARRDEC, manure tea is made by soaking a sack of 32 kilograms of animal manure in 120 liters of water. Water will penetrate and diffuse the solution out of the sack.

Then incubate the solution from one week to one month.

After a week, nitrogen in the solution ranges from 300 parts per million (ppm, measurement of chemical concentration) to 400 ppm and after a month, 800 to more than 1,000 ppm.

“Dilute the tea to 75 ppm to 100 ppm and use it to drench the leafy green vegetables at one liter per week,” recommended CLARRDEC, as reported by PCARRD’s Benjie Gibs.

For fruit vegetables, dilute the tea to 100 ppm to 180 ppm (lower rate is used if the plants are still young) and drench at the rate of one liter to 1.5 liters per hill per week.

Insect pests can also be controlled with the use of biopesticids such as oregano and mint leaves, hot pepper (siling labuyo) fruits, marigold leaves and flower, euphorbia stem and leaves, fire plant leaves and flower, yellow ginger (luyang dilaw) tuber, and Jatropha leaves.

To prepare botanical pesticide using these materials, weigh and chop one kilogram of material to be used then add two liters distilled water before blending.

Forment the solution for 24 hours. Squeese off the solid particles in a fine cloth. To be more effective, prepare the extract a day before spraying.

With a knapsack sprayer, spray the extract to runoff on plants at weekly interval. Dilute four cups of the extracts in 16 liters of water to produce one spray load of solution at 16 liters.   — Rudy A. Fernandez