Project Overview
Commodities
- Fruits: pineapples
Practices
- Pest Management: physical control, general pest management
Proposal summary:
The pineapples Lino Mendiola grows on his Rota farm are noted for their sweetness, providing a valuable edge for marketing his pineapple jam. But the sweetness has a drawback: local rats have acquired a taste. When snare traps failed to control the rats, he turned to commercial rat bait. The bait kills the rats, but land-based coconut crabs that scavenge on the rats are also killed by the poison. His pineapples also suffer from wind damage. Mendiola plans to attack both problems by planting a double windrow of trees around his property. The taller row will be a locally grown tree that produces a nut from which valuable oil is extracted. The inside row, which will also be planted as interior plot-dividing hedges, will be Gliricidia sepium, said to have rodenticidal properties, providing a natural rat bait.