My Challenge To PhilRice Los Baños – To Reduce Labor & Increase Yield, Let’s You & FAH & SRO Conduct A Field Demo In 1 Ha With An Original Ilocano Formula Using The Rotavator!

Early this morning, Friday, 23 Aug 2024, via Facebook, I was challenged by PhilRice Founding Executive Director Santiago R Obien (SRO) to demonstate on-farm what good is any of the practices that belong to the so-called Regenerative Agriculture (RA), the term coined by American farmer Robert Rodale in the 1980s.

So, I want to persuade PhilRice Los Baños to sponsor the inexpensive techno-demo of my Ilocano formula using any rotavator – the process I call HERo, that is, Highly Ecological Rotavation. (Anticipate the demo!)
(image from Soil Master, soilmaster.com.tr)

I want the demo at PhilRice LB because its research fields are right next to those of IRRI as well as UP Los Baños, my alma mater. I have no problem commuting from where I am to PhilRice LB because any of my children with a car can take me there.

What I want to demonstrate is my personally discovered rotavator technique to produce an unbelievably high yield of rice with an unbelievably low cost – no, no fertilizer of any kind, not even organic fertilizer from anywhere or anybody, zero.

A ready farm and a ready rotavator are all I need.

Uniquely, undiscovered by any of the rotavator makers of the world, the way I use the rotavator automatically creates a rich trash mulch on the surface of the farm, and spreads it all over the field, also automatically. To see is to believe!

Even if the yield is lower than you expected, you spent only for the fuel of your rotavator and even that, you cultivated your field at my expense. (In fact, I will make sure your rotavator will spend very little for the fuel – that’s partly a secret of my HERo!)

Still, I guarantee you that the yield will be high, surprisingly high! Even shocking.

History. 60 or so years ago, in my hometown Asingan, Pangasinan, I recall Enso Casasos, our farmhand, was there when I instructed the big Howard rotavator operator what to do. I told the operator (forgot to ask his name) to simply pass the machine over the field – setting the depth of cut to zero (0).

What happened? Decades later, on my visit to Asingan, Enso told me that when I instructed the Howard operator that way, the fellow was smiling on one side of his face (“umis-isem ti bambangir”). And then what happened? Surprise – the yield shot up!

Enso himself used his own rotavator to cultivate his field – setting to zero the depth of cut of the blades. What happens when the rotavator blades do that? They cut those weeds (and/or plant refuse) and mix simultaneously with the soil pieces that are produced in the same rotary motion. Result: Organically rich soil!

We are inviting all journalists to witness the PhilRice LB demo!@517