Wednesday, March 26, 2008 Colting: Of flowers, poems and technology By Dr. Rogelio Colting R4D Corner
NATURE captivates and fascinates the human mind. Poets and writers savor this beauty and capture this in their writings.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), renowned American philosopher, essayist and poet, had various works, which focuses on nature, specifically flowers. One of which is his poem on the Rhodora.
A line of the poem reads: "Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing/Then Beauty is its own excuse for being".
The Benguet Lily (Lilium philippinenses) has likewise captivated writers of this generation. It has inspired Baboo Mondoņedo to write a poem to this seeming endangered and mysterious species.
It read: "She stands out proud/Independent and alone/In all her beauty/High from between the rocks...At some given times/She makes herself scarce/No prodding, coaxing,/Serenading, seducing/Will make her come...When brought down and planted on flat land/She slowly wilts, withering/Folding up, surrendering, dying"
This flower, which dots the mountainsides along Halsema highway in the months of May to June, thrives in well-drained, loam soil at altitudes of 300 to 1000 meters above sea level. It grows in isolated, even unreachable areas.
It becomes scarce "at some given times" because its bulbs become dormant just after the flowering season.
Their flowers are few and seasonal due to the absence of technology in growing them. It is also a very sensitive flower and once it is taken from its natural habitat, it dies.
That probably explains why during the recent Panagbenga, no float was made up of pure Benguet lily although it could be a good symbol for Cordillera since it is considered indigenous to our region unlike other more popular cut flowers, which are adopted from other places. Actually the Benguet lily is already endangered due to over collection.
This prompted faculty researchers from the College of Agriculture, Benguet State University (BSU) to venture into the project, "Development of Production Technology for Benguet Lily.
The project, which started in 2005, will end in 2010. Involved in this research are Araceli Ladilad, Fernando Gonzales, Roger Gayumba, Alma Antonio, and Tony Juanito of the College of Agriculture, Department of Horticulture.
The project is made up of two studies on the propagation and fertilization of the Benguet lily.
The first study titled "Propagation Techniques in Benguet Lily" determined how to propagate and break the dormancy period of Benguet lily.
Lilies are propagated through seeds, bulbs, bulbils, bulb scales, and tissue culture.
Results of the study showed that Benguet lily bulbs dipped for one hour in 500 ppm of Gibberellic Acid (GA3), a plant hormone can induce the earlier formation of roots and shoots, highest percentage of sprouting and earlier breaking of dormancy.
The second study titled "Fertilization in Benguet Lily" determined the effect of different kinds of slow release fertilizers on the growth and flowering of Benguet lily.
Slow release fertilizers are release nutrients slowly but a portion is available immediately. Slow release fertilizers are recommended in lilies since it can provide the majority of the nutrients for the growing season at a single application.
According to Dr. Gonzales, there is difficulty in propagating the flower, out of 100 bulbs only two survive. On the reason why such is the case, he said that they are still finding out why.
He gave an assurance that the research team will continue to finds ways of propagating the species.
