By Danny O. Calleja
LEGAZPI CITY, (PNA) – Funds are needed for the rehabilitation of a sizable area of abaca plantations in Catanduanes, an island province in Bicol celebrated as the country’s number one producer of abaca products for both the domestic and international markets.
Regional Director Ramon Borromeo of the Fiber Industry Development Authority (FIDA) based at the Bicol University complex here on Wednesday said around 1,000 hectares of abaca land scattered among the 11 municipalities of the province need rehabilitation and treatment from plant diseases that could spread to other areas if left uncontrolled.
These diseases are abaca bunchy top and mosaic that are both caused by viruses capable of massive devastation, according to Borromeo.
Bunchy top is a multi-component, circular single stranded DNA virus belonging to the genus Babuvirus and family Nanoviridae and one of the most devastating diseases attacking abaca cultivars.
The virus was first detected in 1915 at Silang, Cavite, and since then has spread to various provinces in the Philippines, damaging more than 8,000 hectares of abaca plantations in 2002 alone.
Bunchy-top, Borromeo explained, is indicated by the malformations of the leaves and yelllowish or whitish streaks on the abaca leaves, causing stunting of the infected abaca plants.
The abaca mosaic diseases are transmitted by at least three species of aphids — Aphis gossypii, Rhopaloshiphum maidis and Pentalonia nigronervosa — in a non-persistent manner.
Infections are also perpetuated by vegetative propagation of plants.
It is characterized by the change of color of the leaves from dark green to light green or yellowish with rusty streaks on the blade, midrib and petiole of the leaf.
Mosaic patterns, stripes and spindle-shaped streaks may also be visible on the base of the pseudostem when the leaf sheaths are removed.
Infection is often associated with an increase in pigmentation on the pseudostem, and sometimes symptoms are chlorotic on a red background and sometimes reddish, yellow or chlorotic on a green background.
Leaf symptoms, consisting of spindle-shaped lesions and streaks running parallel to the veins, are not always evident but can occur on recently infected young plants.
Borromeo, citing reports from FIDA Catanduanes provincial office officer-in-charge Roger Magtangob, said nearly 1,000 hectares are currently infected with the plant diseases in the municipalities of Bato, Bagamanoc, Gigmoto, San Andres, Pandan, Panganiban and Virac.
The FIDA said that in Bato town, alone where an abaca rehabilitation program is being implemented, disease infestation has been pegged at 13 percent of the total 2,690 hectares planted.
In his report to Borromeo, Magtangob said about 400 hectares of abaca land in Bagamanoc, Bato, Caramoran, Gigmoto and San Andres need rehabilitation being totally ravaged by the diseases while plants in some 375 hectares in Bagamanoc, Caramoran, Panganiban, Pandan and Virac should be treated.
Funds are needed for these purposes and Borromeo said his office is trying its best to produce the amount from various sources, including the Catanduanes government from where the FIDA provincial office is asking assistance in the amount of P2 million.
There is a need to continue with the abaca disease eradication program in Catanduanes as these new disease infestations could wipe out a large area of the total of 23,676 hectares abaca plantations cultivated by 15,454 farmers in the province when left unattended to due to fund problems, the FIDA regional chief said.
He recalled that in the early 1990s, the province’s abaca plantations were also hit by the same plant diseases but timely implementation of the disease eradication program granted with funding from the Catanduanes Agricultural Support Programme prevented a more damaging infestation.
Such program, Borromeo said, enabled the province to reclaim leadership in abaca fiber production throughout the country by producing since 2009 up to the present an average of 18,971 metric tons (MT), representing 33.2 percent of the total national output.
This production is realized following abaca rehabilitation and disease eradication that included curtailment of abaca mosaic and bunchy top, the viral diseases which affect the abaca plantations in Bicol and Eastern Visayas.
This is carried out through tissue culture and distribution of high-yielding, disease-free abaca cultivars at the FIDA laboratories in this city, Sorsogon City, Virac, Catanduanes as well as in Leyte and Davao City.
Seedbanks in Camarines Sur and Sorsogon are also being developed while research and development on crop protection, production, improvement and fiber processing is functionally in place to increase the country’s abaca fiber yield.
From 2001 through 2010, the country’s production of abaca fiber averaged 65,701 MT per year and had been decreasing at a minimal rate of 0.8 percent per annum due to the devastating typhoons in 2006, coupled with abaca viral diseases that continued to affect the plantations.
With an 84-percent share of the world’s abaca fiber production, the Philippines is considered the international abaca capital since the Spanish era — with Catanduanes and Leyte as top producers.
For the past 10 years, the country’s exports of abaca fiber averaged 13,434 MT per annum as the demand of the country’s major trading partners – the United Kingdom and Japan — contracted substantially, particularly in 2009 when financial crisis hit the global economy.
Europe, specifically the United Kingdom, is the premier destination of Philippine abaca fiber, absorbing an average of 6,663 MT or 49.6 percent of the ten-year average exports.
The country posted an amount of US$ 120 million in abaca export earnings last year or an over P5 billion on the back of increased demand for abaca pulp and cordage in the Philippines’ major markets.