Horticultural training

The coming week is going to be busy. FPDA undertake to put 12 trainees through a years training in ENB every year. They provide some basic equipment, seed, etc. the trainees need to have access to some land and are expected once the initial training is complete to get on with things. Most of the current vege growers in the area have started out through the training program.
This years trainees are starting their formal training this week, with a three day course. First day is classroom stuff; Christine is helping Neli, give the financial/ budgeting stuff. The next two days is basic "field" work, planting, sowing, soil preparation, etc, etc.
 Two of this years trainees are already growing. Jerry is helping a village develop a growing operation, starting with watermelons (you would have seen photos in previous blogs). Thomas is using some land owned by his mother. Has grown some Pak Choi, is harvesting corn at the moment and has some Wong Boks (chinese cabbage). Some of his cousins are disputing his right to use the land. There was a land dispute mediation last week, the outcome as yet unknown. But it shows that land use and tenure is an ongoing issue here even for the people who "own" the land. Particularly for Tolai's (tribe around Kokopo), as the land is owned and passed down through the women.
 One of the problems close to Kokopo is that land is now mostly taken up with housing, larger area's for growing are not very common. So people need to move further out (as per Jerry) to get bigger blocks of land. That brings transport and logistics problems as the roads aren't very good.
It will be interesting to see how Jerry and the villagers handle the challenges.

I visited Sonoma a Seventh Day Adventist training facility near Kokopo and a brassica grower, last week. Sonoma trains teachers, technical skills (carpentry, metal working, etc), pastors and farm workers. They have a large farm and grow most of what they eat and also supply a couple of the Kokopo supermarkets. The have a small nursery to raise their own plants.The farm manager was pretty "switched" on and running a good operation. I saw some wilting of half grown plants, which I put down to Boron deficiency.  DBM and other caterpillers were having a good feed. In spite of people telling me it wasn't available, I managed to find a supplier of Success, which the growers will be able to start using. So far it seems that most know about using agricultural chemicals from different groups to stop resistance building up.


The "gang" from left; Security guard needing to get back to Kokopo, "Malc", Elizabeths husband and driver for FPDA, Elizabeth, guy in yellow Farm manager SONOMA, person with cap is in charge of Agricultural training Sonoma. They are all looking a bit surprised, as I told them I was going to put their photo on the Internet and make them famous.

Cabbage seedlings with lots of holes in the leaves.

 View of the nursery, lettuce seedlings in the background.

 
Typical cabbage being eaten by various caterpillers and DBM. Most growers are still using Karate as the main, or part of their spray program. DBD is completely resistant to it. They are also doing the same for Cocoa borer- waste of time and money. Actually worse that a waste of time because "spraying" something on a crop, gives you the illusion of control, when you're not really controlling anything.

Typical wilting seen in the field on Pak Choi. My first thought; looks as if it could be Clubroot -but nothing on the roots. If you cut the stem open, its brown down the centre and a hollow is starting in the base of the plant, with slightly reddish tinge around the outside of the hollow; typical boron deficiency symptoms. The plant is wilting because the center of the root isn't moving water and  nutrients to the tops, because that part of the stem that moves stuff around, has essentially died. Some plants start to grow new roots from near the base of the plant. Some varieties seem more susceptible than others, to deficiency problems. DBM chewing holes in the outside leaves.

I'm still amazed at how quickly stuff grows here.
 I suspect things are going to start getting busier from now on.
Christine:
I saw a young mother give her very young child (12mths??) a can of soft drink. The child snatched the can and began to drink as if her life depended on it. She emptied the can. Apparently lots of mothers give their children soft drinks unaware of the damage they are doing to their child. They love to drink coke because the All Blacks drink it - at least PNGers think they drink it because of the advertising at games and on All Black shirts.
I spent time with Neli at FPDA going over budget/finance material for the students for this coming week. Neli is pretty switched on. About the only thing I was able to add was the need to think about separating money for household expenses from farming finance as a way of ensuring money is available for next seasons seed etc. I also suggested trying to save (however small the amount to begin with) for future goals. It may mean a couple of bank accounts or just separate cash pots buried in the ground somewhere!!  Family Obligations (funerals etc) are a big thing here so money given away needs careful planning.