Wednesday, July 18, 2007 Organic palay farming thrives in coastal town PALIMBANG, Sultan Kudarat -- Organic farming method has swept hundreds of farmers off their feet in this coastal town notoriously known in the past decades for its erratic peace and order condition. Wednesday, July 18, 2007 Organic palay farming thrives in coastal town PALIMBANG, Sultan Kudarat -- Organic farming method has swept hundreds of farmers off their feet in this coastal town notoriously known in the past...

Nitrogen is a popular crop fertilizer that causes problems when it washes off fields into rivers on its way to the ocean. That's consistent with any change in acreage, intensification of corn agriculture up in the basin. A "dead zone," shown in gray, occurs in the Gulf of Mexico each summer as nutrient buildup leads to drastic reductions in oxygen in bottom waters. The number of acres planted to corn this spring were up nearly 20 percent over last year, mainly to meet ethanol demand. Each...

The schools helped farmers control pests like mosquitoes Sahar Majid 16 July 2007 Source: SciDev.net Empowering farmers to reduce mosquito populations and to use less pesticide will reduce malaria and other vector-borne diseases, according to a research paper published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization (WHO) this month (July) The schools helped farmers control pests like mosquitoes Sahar Majid 16 July 2007 Source: SciDev.net Empowering farmers to reduce mosquito populations...

These chemicals are often found in fertilizers that are combined with herbicides. My advice is to not use those products, as the best time to fertilize isn't the best time to apply herbicides, which should only be applied to solve a specific problem that hasn't responded to other methods, like hand-pulling. Regular insecticides can kill grasshoppers, but their sheer numbers and great mobility, combined with strong chemical constitutions, require very frequent re-applications of strongly...

In conditions like we have faced in the last four weeks it is advisable to use every period when the grass is relatively free of water on the blades, to rev up the mower, and cut a portion of the lawn. Set the mower at its highest setting and mow the lawn at that level before lowering the blades to the recommended height for the grass variety and mowing a second time to bring the lawn to its normal cutting height. If you have been on vacation and return to find your lawn 8 inches tall and...