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Cabanatuan City - The Nueva Ecija University of Science and
Technology (NEUST) has partnered with the country's top
pomologist or fruit expert for the putting up of a
techno-demo center for the modern culture of high value
fruit trees which are potential dollar-earners as well as
labor intensive enterprise.
The
signing of a memorandum of agreement (MOA) by and between
NEUST President Hilario C. Ortiz and Bernardo O. Dizon over
the weekend was witnessed by no less than the Department of
Agriculture Region 3 Director Redentor Gatus and top
officials of the university.
Highlight of the MOA signing was a free hands-on-lecture
seminar on the culture of fruit trees conducted by Dizon at
the NEUST gym in Barangay Sumacab, this city. It was avidly
participated in by 123 participants who came from as far as
Binalonan, Pangasinan in the north and Lipa, Batangas in the
south. Similar activities will be held every first Saturday
of every month.
Dizon
also "top-worked" a dozen Indian mango trees budding them
with such varieties as Guimaras, sweet Elena, and Thailand
varieties Chokanan and Namdokmai, which shall be the source
of budsticks for use in the NEUST project.
Gatus
hailed the undertaking as significant in the maximization of
the fruit tree industry considering the "excellent
expertise" of Dizon, who he regarded as the country's top
pomologist.
Thrilled by the bright prospects offered by what he calls
"the Dizon phenomenon," especially in the field of
"top-working," Gatus has committed to Ortiz the
establishment of a "farmers' training center" at the Sumacab
campus.
Ortiz
who looks at the acquisition of Dizon's expertise as "a
life-long quest to reinvigorate the province's culture of
exotic high-value fruit trees such as mango, citrus,
lanzones, durian, mangosteen, rambutan, pummelo, and others,
employing the multi-rooted technology being promoted by
Dizon."
The
NEUST which has vast areas which can be used for
modeling/showcasing agribusiness projects such as orhcard,
nursery and other income generating projects.
The
NEUST shall provide as workshop for Dizon a half-hectare
area at the NEUST-Sumacab campus, a half-hectare ara in its
Atate, Palayan City campus, and an unlimited area in vast
grounds of the NEUST-Gabaldon campus.
For
his part Dizon, an agricultural scientist, shall transform
the university as a showcase of his refined multiple
rootstock technology in the culture of fruit trees. |
