Today we visited the town of Aguada to see a plant nursery and also see a hill side yam and cassava farm. The activities called for field work with agronomist Carlos Morganti and mostly tours of the places. Mr. Morganti works with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Aguada.
In the morning, we traveled to a plant nursery called Jardines Coloso. The area in which Jardines Coloso is located (along with the farm we visited later that day) was originally devoted to sugar cane production but was abandoned in the 80s. It is in a valley with over 2000 acres available. Today, most of the land is not in use because of drainage problems. Only recently, farmers have come back to reuse it. One such person who is reviving the area is Mrs. Damaris Valle. Mrs. Valle owns and operates the ornamental nursery we visited. At the nursery she gave us a tour of the place and showed us the types of plants she is growing and selling. The ornamental trade is very popular in Puerto Rico and from what we learned before it is supposed to be the biggest market in agriculture here. According to Carlos her business is doing very well and is expanding more and more every year. Further along the tour, we were told of problems she has encountered one of which is pests. As of now, the ornamental industry uses chemical pesticides to combat the pests. This presents a problem because pesticides are not friendly to the environment. Lots of these chemicals drain into the aquifers and oceans and cause environmental problems. Because of all the problems caused by pesticides, UPRM is doing research to find organic biocontrols that are effective for use in the ornamental industry. Of course right now pesticides are still used widely in the ornamental industry in Puerto Rico.
After our tour of the ornamental nursery, we went on a guided tour of a farm that exhibits hill side ditches and contour farming. There we looked at the method of planting yams, cassava, and plantains. Yams as well as other root crops, are very labor intensive. There are no machines that can be used to harvest the root crops and therefore, everything must be done by hand. The same is true for the casava which is also grown on the farm. While it takes more work to grow these crops Carlos noted that these root crops often fetch high prices at the market and that the farm we visited is doing very well. The other crop we took a look at were the plantain Bananas. Plantains are an important crop in Puerto Rico and it also sells well. However there are some problems with growing plantains. One, they require heavy use of fertilizer and pesticides which we learned earlier is not friendly to the environment. Another problem is that they are sensitive to strong winds(maybe windbreakers could be a solution). Other problems include the Black Sigatoka disease and also like we see in Guam thieves are another common problem. Even with these problems plantains are still very important and people are working on solutions to these problems. After the visit and viewing of the farm to farm it concluded our activities.
One last thing we did before we headed home was stop by a lookout before leaving the town! I was able to capture some shots of the bays and some of the area. :D
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