TROPICAL VEGETABLE RESEARCH IN BELIZE

shredded white radish
Chinese white radish



VEGETABLE RESEARCH FOR THE HOT SUMMER MONTHS IN BELIZE

Stopped by the Chinese experimental plot this morning. The only thing looking good was a white radish. The Chinese chop and grind up radish and sprinkle it on their food as seasoning.

The Agronomist Miss Balam over at Central Farm is sun drying some onions in a wire cage with zinc roof. She has 17 varieties of onions she has grown. The biggest is PONDEROSA variety, weighing in at 1 lb 4 oz. or around 22 oz weight. She will be doing tests on them for production costs, versus weights and numbers later she said.

The gossip I got on the FAO financed habenero crop for export to the USA through a guy exporting, was that the price is running around .80 cents Belize per pound and the experiment seems to have worked out okay. No other information on this at the time.

The biggest problem facing vegetable production are the hot months, April through August, because of the temperatures not changing at night. We need to find varieties that will grow for everything in the hot summer months.

Potatoes were looking good, but I understand nothing has changed yet on potato experiments in Belize. We still import temperate zone seed stock from the USA. On the other hand Peru is the home of the potato and one wonders why Central Farm are not importing some Peruvian varieties to experiment with?

Disconcerting was the implication that the Taiwanese and Central Farm vegetable experimental staff are each going their own way. When I asked at Central Farm for news on Taiwanese experimental vegetables, they did not know anything. They say the subject is only discussed once a year when they submit a report to GOB. I was enquiring about failures and successes but unable to find any data. Something gone wrong here apparently with co-ordination?

A volunteer was to send me some mustard lettuce seeds, but so far I've never got them?