Chili Pepper

Chili pepper is an erect, branched, shrub-like herb which grows to height of about 1 1/2 meters high, more or less.

The pounded pepper fruits are used in promoting a healthy appetite. People who suffer from rheumatism can get some relief from a potion made by soaking one cup of crushed chili pepper ( ripe) in a cup of vinegar. When used as condiment, it rouses the appetite and dispel the gas formed in the alimentary canal.

Chili pepper plant is a propagated by seeds. The seeds are sown either in seed boxes or seedbeds.

Fruits maybe harvested at each stage of maturity:

* Green Mature- when the fruit has reached its full size but still green all over.

* Breaker- when discoloration has started at the blossom end with the appearance of red spots.

* Red-Ripe- when pepper has fully became fully red in color.

Harvesting is done by snapping or twisting the fruits from their stems.

Pigeon Pea

Pigeon Pea or kadios as locally known is an erect, branched and shrubby legume. The small pods are eaten as vegetable white still green or young. The dried seeds are also eaten as vegetable and cooked with other vegetables, fish, shrimps or meat.

The leaves are pounded and applied as treatment for sores. The juice passed from the leaves mixed with salt as given as medicine for jaundice.

Plant 2 to 4 seeds in a hill spaced at 1.5 meters apart between hills in the row or furrow, and 1.5 meters apart between furrows.

Katuray

Katuray is one of the most widely distrubution vegetable tree crop in the country growing to about 12 meters in height. It may be greatly reduced in height if pruned, but will have more lateral branches than when not pruned. The Katuray tree bears few white, large flowers.

Economic and Nutritive Values of Katuray:

* The young leaves and pods which are eaten as vegetables are cooked either with fish and met or with other vegetables.

* Protein concentrates can be extracted from the leaves. The younger leaves contain more protein than the older leaves.

* Vitamins A and C are found in the leaves.

Medicinal Value of Katuray:

* Juice extracted from the roots mixwd with honey is used as an expectorant for colds and catarrh.

* A paste is made from the roots of the red- flowered Katuray variety and is given as remedy for rheumatic pains.

* Applies as remedy for headache caused by severe catarrh is the juice extracted from the juice of leaves and flowers.

* Flowers are used to make bowel movement easy.

Katuray tree is propagated by seeds and by cutting. Germinate the seeds in seed boxes or seedbeds. Transplant in the seedlings in the fiels or garden when they are about 75 to 100 centimeters tall.

Pineapple

The pineapple is a wonder fruit. It is not grown from seeds. The plant is grown from slips near the base of the fruit, from suckers that grow lower down on the stem of the plant, or from the crown that issues from the top of the pineapple.

When fully grown, the vegetative plant is the appearance of a "red bud" in the growing center by the plant where the new leaves have been forming. It is about the size of a big calamansi and red in color. It is actually a miniature pineapple containing approximately 150 individual flowers, a number equal to the " eye" of the ripe pineapple, for parts of each flower are eventually to become an eye.

The ripe pineapple fruit is eaten as a dessert. Sugar syrup is made from pineapple fruit. Pineapples are canned and exported. The forms of canned pineapples are slices, chunks, tidbits and "crisp cut". Fiber from pineapple leaves is made into pina cloth.

The juice extracted from the pineapple leaves is used as a purgative also to expel intestinal worms. The unripe fruit when eaten aids in disposing excess water in the body through increasing the amount of urine produced which is then disposed through urination.

Duhat

The duhat fruit is small, oval or elliptic in shape. It is about two centimeters long, dark purple or nearly black in color. Duhat tree is grown for its edible fruits.

The fruit is often made into jelly. The beverage made from duhat juice offers commercial possibilities. The trunk yield a soft timber of good quality which is used for interior decoction. The leaves are pounded and heated and applied on skin irritations.

Varieties of Duhat

There are only two known varieties of duhat grown in the country. They are the seeded “Kinalabao” and the seedless type. Kinalabao is commonly grown in most parts of the country, while the seedless type is rarely grown because it produces small fruits.

Propagation and Harvesting

Duhat can be propagated sexually by seeds and asexually by budding, grafting, inarching and marcotting.

Duhat fruits can be harvested seven to eight years from planting time. Its fruiting season is from April to June. The fruit is fully ripe when the purplish-red color changes to dark purple or black

Cassava

Cassava is an erect, shrubby plant growing to height of about i meter to 3 meters. It bears stout,elongated, fleshy edible roots. This plant is classified under root crop. Its small fruits are in the form of ovoid capsules.

Medicinal Value of Cassava

* For relief of headache or fever apply a head compress of pounded cassava leaves.

* Solution formed by boiling the bark of the stem of the cassava plant will help expel intestinal worms and will also serves as medicine of rheumatism.

Economic and Nutritive Values of Cassava

* The cassava tuber is boiled and eaten, with or without sugar.

* The tuber is a good source of gapleck and sago. From gapleck, starch is manufactures which is them made into flour and used in the preparation of biscuits, cookies and bread. Sago is used in the preparation of "guinta-an," a native delicacy.

There are two varieties of cassava- the sweet and the bitter.Both varieties contain a certain percentage of hydrocyanic compound, a kind of poison in the bark and flesh of the plant. Sweet cassava has a low percentage of the poison. The better kind has 1.012 to 0.37 percent in the edible portion. This hydrocyanic compound disappears or is eliminated during the boiling process.

In harvesting, dig the soil carefully around the roots of the plants with a crowbar or pointed bamboo stick when the soil is soft.Cut the top parts of the cassava stems first, leaving the stumps which should them the pulled to haul the storage roots from the soil.

Ginger

Ginger or “luya” as it is called locally, is an herbaceous root crop with a straight stem arising from a think aromatic rhizome. It may grow to about a meter high with long elongated leaves. It grows well in a sandy loam soil with good drainage.

Some Uses of Ginger

• “ Salabat” is made from fresh rhizome which is used as a stimulating drink.
• Fresh rhizome is used for flavoring food.
• Ginger in any of its three forms can be used in the preparation of confectionary, beverage, perfume and medicine.

Ginger as Prepared in Medicine

• Pound the leaves and apply to bruises.
• As an antirheumatic remedy, pound some pieces of rhizome and apply them on the affected part.
• Extract the juice from rhizome pieces and apply as cure for toothache and bleeding gums.

Ginger plants eat plenty of soil nutrients. It is essential, therefore, that these soil nutrients be replaced. Application of sufficient amount of organic materials such as well-rotted animal manure and “complete fertilizers” would favorably help the plants.

Black Pepper

Black Pepper is a perennial vine crop with a productive life of fifteen to twenty years or more. It is easy to grow black pepper. There is only one variety and several native strains of black pepper cultivated in the country.

The bushy black pepper bears fruit much earlier, usually as early as six months after planting.The seed - growth type, on the other hand,starts flowering after five to six years. That is why it is used only for breeding purposes.

Economic Value Of Black Pepper

* Black Pepper is the most widely used spice. The dried berries of black papper called Peppercorns are used as the major condiment in several food preparation.

* Peppercorns give aroma and flavor to food.

Medicinal Value Of Black Pepper

* The berriies are used externally as a rubefacient ( an externally skin application)in baldness and skin diseases.

* The decoction (solution caused by boiling the berries in water), when taken internally is used for dyspepsia, cough and intermittent fever.

* A water infusion of the corons( peppercorns) is used as a gargle in various infections in the throat.

* The roots are boiled in water and the solution is used as tonic, stimulant, cordial and anthelmintic ( expels intestinal worms).


The Black pepper may be propagated by waterspouts and runner stems. Waterspouts are succulent branches which arise from the main stem of primary branches.