How to Make Money in Medicinal Plant Farming.

How to Make Money in Medicinal Plant Farming. The integration of medicinal plant as a crop in agroforestry is a relatively new approach that is beneficial to the local people, whether they are lowland or upland farmers or most especially, the indigenous people. The Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau (ERDB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is publishing this issue on medicinal plants as a profitable farming technology to serve as a guide in the development of small backyard herbal gardens, community-based herbal plantation or urban herbal park. This can help boost the Philippine herbal industry by providing adequate supply of raw materials for local as well as global needs.

How to use salt as fertilizer for coconut.

How to use salt as fertilizer for coconut. The application of sodium chloride (NaCl) can increase nut production, copra weight per nut and copra yield per tree. Research studies on chloride nutrition and fertilization of coconuts were extensively reported in 1972 on the positive responses of young and bearing coconuts to chlorine application. This was the result of adding potassium chloride to palms at the Davao Research Center of the Philippine Coconut Authority in Bago Oshiro, Davao City. The beneficial role of chlorine in the normal growth, accelerated development, and high nut and copra yields of coconuts was confirmed in the inland coconut-productive areas in Davao. Leaf chlorine is the main factor for copra yields; and for foliar diagnosis (a tool for nutritional diagnosis and predicting fertilizer needs), the critical level of leaf-Cl was found at 0.30% C1 and optimum level at 0.50-0.55% C1. The addition of 60-70 g NaCl/seedling can increase the plant’s girth and fresh weight

How to Make and Use Herb Preparations.

How to Make and Use Herb Preparations. Making your own herbal concoctions for medicinal purposes is really not that difficult. And since the best herbal preparations are those made when the plants are fresh, the better off you are to grow your own herbs and make your own preparations. But even the best plants can be ruined if you use the wrong kind of process in preparing your remedies. Your choice depends on the parts of the plant to be used, the form in which the remedy will be taken, and the desired result. Remember that herbal remedies are not one-shot wonder cures. Their effectiveness is based largely on a gradual cure. The following ways of preparing your fresh herbs are those most commonly used in herbal medicine. Always use an enamel or non-metallic pot. Infusion – this is a beverage made like tea, combining boiled water with the plants and steeping it to extract the active ingredients. The normal amounts are about 1/2 to 1 ounce of the plant to one pint of boiled water. You should let the mixture steep for five to ten minutes, covered, and strain the infusion into a cup. Cold Extract – preparing herbs with cold water preserves the most volatile ingredients, while extracting only minor amounts of mineral salts and bitter principles. Add about double the amount of plant material used for an infusion to cold water and let sit for about 8 to 12 hours, strain and drink.

Leyte farmers benefit from abaca multi-stranded yarning machine .

Leyte farmers benefit from abaca multi-stranded yarning machine. Abaca fiber is one of the most high-valued commodities and products are grown in the Philippines due to its high demand both in local and foreign markets. The Philippines the world’s top and largest producer of abaca fiber and by-products. It is the strongest among the existing natural fibers and is primarily used as a raw material for pulp and paper, fiber craft, cordage, among others. With its wide range of uses, abaca has rapidly grown into an industry providing opportunities for livelihood and as additional income to abaca farmers and processors.

Public health workers: Stopping sickness before it starts.

Public health workers: Stopping sickness before it starts. What is a public health professional? Behind the doctors and nurses that treat the sick are the civil servants and volunteers that prevent disease outbreaks or the onset of chronic illness. Public health workers monitor and maintain a community’s collective health through public outreach, policy recommendations and education initiatives that encourage citizens to adopt better health practices. What do they do? Their efforts go beyond encouraging children to wash their hands (though that could be part of a broader campaign to fight contagious diseases). Public health officials address a range of health issues from childhood nutrition to HIV testing. They use their acumen as communicators, organizers, policymakers, researchers and educators to improve community well-being.

One- on -one care for pigs ensures better pig health status on farm .

Taking time to walk the pens, make eye contact with each pig and pull the sick ones for individual care seems to conflict with the basic tenets and efficiencies of population medicine.One-on-one pig care means to make sure to look at every pig every day — and that we evaluate them essentially from tail to snout — to try to identify any potential problems that pig may have as quickly as possible. The approach involves three basic steps: Identifying the at-risk pig, being specific about its symptoms and effectively communicating the situation to others in the operation. Practically speaking, the process begins with spotting the outlier — the pig that simply strikes you as somehow unusual. Farmers shoulld walk through the barn to develop a pattern as they go through each pen, to make sure they get an opportunity to look at every pig. Basically, looking for any of the clinical signs that the pig isn’t normal such as For example: 1)Is he coughing?. 2)Does he have diarrhea? 3)Is he gaunt and not eating? 4)Is there nasal discharge?. 5)Does he appear stiff or lame when he moves? The next step will be to institute individual treatment protocols with an injectable antibiotic — typically already in place and specific for each farm and for each flow and system — can be called into use right away and used under veterinary supervision. Early intervention is really the key as we look at individual pig care,because we know that if we treat a pig later in the course of the disease, we have poorer response to treatment so if we can treat the pig earlier, we can have a better response. Research has shown that on farms with low health status, training caretakers to identify and treat sick pigs at an early stage of disease can improve growth and productivity during the all-important nursery and growing periods.

Urine sampling can reliably detect procaine penicillin G (PPG) residues in sows.

Urine sampling can reliably detect penicillin residues in sows.Urine sampling is an effective way to detect procaine penicillin G (PPG) residues prior to processing and may help producers avoid processing-plant violations. There has been an increasing incidence of PPG-residue detection in cull sows reported, due in part to changes in the PPG-testing method made by USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service in 2011. Residues of PPG in sows are not uncommon at processing, although plasma concentrations of PPG correlate well with tissue residue, collecting and evaluating plasma is complicated. Urine is easier to collect and handle. PPG residues are most often found in sows if extra-label doses of PPG have been administered or if treatment was continued for more than 3 consecutive days. A study carried out by Karriker, DVM, a professor at Iowa State University shown below: Karriker designed a study involving 47 sows, with three treatment groups: Group 1 received the labeled dose of 3,000 IU/lb (3 mL/lb). Group 2 received an average volume of sterile solution once a day for 3 days. Group 3 received an extra-label dose of 15,000 IU/lb (15 mL/lb) once a day for 3 consecutive days. Karriker found PPG residues persist longest in injection-site tissues — for at least 28 days after PPG administration. It stays in the skeletal muscles for 14 days. PPG depletes faster from the kidneys, and residues can be found for up to 6 days after administration to the sow. Sampling the sow’s environment was not reliable for determining residues. While PPG residues were easily found in the environment, they did not correlate with tissue residues, Karriker says. The current withdrawal time for PPG is 7 days. Although a 15-day withdrawal time has been proposed by the Food Animal Residue Avoidance Databank, it may not be sufficient to avoid processing-plant violations, Karriker says.