Multiple rootstock technology can double your fruit output

by Michael M. Alunan

     Bernardo O. Dizon, an agriculturist, is promoting what he claims as new and highly-effective "double or multiple rootstock technology" to increase fruit production.

     Dizon says the same technology is now widely-practiced by fruiting-exporting countries like Thailand and Taiwan. It has been introduced only recently in the Philippines by Dizon himself.

     The technology called "inarching" or "bridge grafting" - an innovation from the old grafting method - is the merging of two or more seedlings into one big stem or trunk.

     Dizon explains that the technology hastens plant development and fruit-yielding. Aside from producing fruits early, the technology allows higher yield as the various rootstocks allow more absorption of nutrients from the soil.

     Lanzones, for instance takes as long as 20 to 25 years to start bearing fruits, could now yield fruits in one or two years through the technology. Lychee could triple yields with the new technology.

     "With this technology any type of soil, climate and location can be planted now with citrus like oranges and pomelo and other fruit trees like durian, rambutan, lanzones, mangosteen, lychee and other non-traditional fruit trees," Dizon noted.

     Another advantage of multiple rootstocking is that it "gets better anchorage in the ground to withstand strong winds, typhoon and droughts. The plant also doubles its chance to live longer," Dizon emphasized.

     He added that the plant likewise becomes "doubly resistant to diseases especially foot rot disease, the No. 1 killer of citrus fruits due to low budding." All these advantages, particularly higher yields and early fruiting which shortens gestation period, Dizon says can be translated into higher prices and incomes.

     Dizon, who is more than willing to share his technology at his Fruit Research and Development Center, UP BLISS Economic Garden in Diliman, Quezon City, claims that the double or multiple rootstock technology can be applied to all fruit trees and vines like grapes so long as their stems have woody portions.

     While Dizon expressed strong objections to imported fruits, he cautioned he is not actually against importation. "What we need to import is not the fruit but the technology and plant varieties," Dizon citing, for instance, the double-stock technology.

     The reason there are strong pressures to import cheaper fruits is that local fruits could not compete, despite the fact the country has richer soils and cheaper labor.

     Dizon said that there is a widespread myth among Filipinos that fruits grown in temperate countries cannot be grown in the Philippines.

     He noted that Brazil with its hot ,dry climate like the Philippines used to import heavily apples, pears, oranges, and other fruits in the past, but now produces and even exports the same fruits.

     In fact, Brazil is now the world's no. 1 orange producer. It has even generated export earnings of about $1.5 billion in 1988/89, controlling 80 percent of the world trade, trade of orange, he said.