Friday, June 21, 2013

I have got to get out more



Even just out of Jikijem (the mini-village within the macro-village that is Oku, I could explain that better, but not now). I had two visitors this past weekend and on Sunday we took a nice stroll up to Lake Oku. Beautiful. I am without a camera right now, so no pictures unfortunately, but if you have ever been to a mountain crater lake before you’ll kind of get the gist. Couple that with a weirdly beautiful forest surrounding the lake full of trees and vegetation unlike anywhere else on the planet. That’s a literal statement. The forest around the lake, called Ijim Forest or Kilum/Ijim Mountain Reserve is home to a whole slew of unique plant and animal life that are kind of trapped in this high elevation island surrounded by low-lands they aren’t adapted for and that cut them off from other high elevation environments.

Insanely, I hadn’t visited the lake before two days ago. Granted, on the way into Oku you drive past the lake and get a nice/fleeting view of it, but that doesn’t really count. Apparently it is only a 90-minute hike up at a good clip. Once you get to the area, you have to work your way down a slick trail that is a bit tricky, so wear good shoes. At the bottom of that trail is a small sitting area with a bench (that is one bench) and a great view of the lake’s surface. I was apparently given bad information about the restrictions on accessing the lake and thought that we were prohibited from touching the water, but then two local guys who were collecting some water to make their medicine, and they told us it was a different day of the week that the restriction held. At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if I asked 8 people and got 8 answers on that question (remember, the traditional week is 8 days long).

That day kind of told me that I have got to do a little more site seeing while I’m here in Cameroon. That probably means getting to other parts of the country (nowhere where there are vipers though; seriously, I think I would have a breakdown if I was faced with a viper hanging down from a tree on a path I was walking) which takes some degree of commitment/planning/taking time away from work, none of which I’m particularly good at (not that I’m a workaholic, just that I’ve never gotten beyond the feeling that when I’m away from work it is all going to fall apart). Having visitors helps. It kind of forces you to be a good host, and since that were my third visitors in a year it isn’t too much of a distraction (though if the word gets out about how pretty that lake and forest are, I may have a problem).

Monday, June 10, 2013

Lantana


...or as I call it, ‘Verbena, no wait, lantana, or is it verbena? Uh... You know I used to work in a greenhouse where we grew thousands of these things? It’s lantana, definitely lantana. Don’t ask again.’

Some farmers prepping lantana leaves for an insecticidal spray
So apparently lantana leaves, flowers, roots, stems, etc. (we could save time by saying, the whole plant) can be ground up into a paste, the essential oils extracted in a simple water solution, and sprayed as an insecticide. What attracts me most to lantana is the absolute free-ness of it. Often, among those of us who are pitching botanical pest control solutions, there is a tendency to kind of ignore the price of the ingredients going into the mix. When you grind up garlic and onions you can get another apparently decent insecticide, which is fine except that garlic and onions aren't exactly cheap around here and when you start talking about the quantities necessary to spray a whole field of coffee, most farmers are going to start wondering why they’re not just using a packet of Dursban. Lantana on the other hand grows all over Oku and Mbessa, usually being used as an ornamental shrub or hedge and has literally no other current use to give it a monetary value. So harvest it up guys.

So free is good, but effective is really good and that is something I’m not 100% convinced on yet. I have heard that lantana is probably most effective on aphids in the coffee world, but the annoying thing is that it seems like everything is most effective on aphids. So when you’ve got aphids, no problem. The most common insect pest I’ve been seeing lately has been scales and occasionally mealy bugs. Scales are kind of a bear to control with any kind of contact insecticide because they have themselves pretty well protected under a nice waxy coat, so systemic pesticides tend to be more effective, but until I figure out how to get neem on a regular basis, I'm not sure what else would fit that description.

I’ll put some time on the internet to see what suggestions I can get for cleaning up scales, but if there are any suggestions out there, I’d love to hear them. (Pre-emptively, if you have a predatory insect in mind, I like that idea too, but you’ll have to give me suggestions on how to actually get them in Cameroon without breaking all sorts of laws transporting living insects across national borders)