SINCE THE day basi, that legendary native wine of the Ilocanos, became the one-town-one-product item of this city, Virgilio Gaudia, 56, of Brgy. Bacsil in Laoag City decided to shift to sugarcane as his main crop.

His first challenge was how to increase his harvest of quality sugarcane juice to cope with the increasing demand of quality basi and sukang Iloko (Iloco vinegar) by wine traders and tourists coming in the province.

When he heard, through, about the program of MMSU helping science and technology-based farms (STBF) of farmers in the province, Gaudia immediately sought the assistance of the University Extension Office and offered his farms for a demonstration project on sugarcane production.

Immediately, extension workers of the university visited his farm to set up the project. Before the start of his STBF, however, other sugarcane farmers in Bacsil were hesitant to believe whether the new interventions would bring change in the yield and quality of their produce. Nonetheless, when they saw the result, they were finally convinced to follow the technology in their next cropping season.

One impressive result was the improved and unique taste and color of the basi and vinegar produced, thus, elevating these over those produced in other provinces.

How the STBF was carried out

MMSU experts divided Gaudia’s farm into two, each measuring 1,628 square meters. The first was used to show the traditional practices on sugarcane production, also known as “farmers’ practice”. The other was employed to demonstrate the technology intervention recommended by MMSU experts, also referred to as “enhanced practice”.

Gaudia’s STBFs were established in December last year (In Ilocos Norte and some areas of Region I, sugarcane production usually starts in December until January the succeeding year.). The farms were prepared in the conventional plowing and harrowing methods. Both were plowed at 20 centimeters (cm) deep.

In the farmer’s practice, Gaudia used the Yellow Java variety, the traditional variety used Bacsil farmers. On the other hand, in the enhanced practice, he planted VMC86-550 and VMC87-559 varieties recommended by MMSU experts.

In the enhanced practice, Gaudia changed the traditional planting distance between the plants. Instead of 0.6 meters, he set a 1.5-meter (m) distance between rows, 0.5 m between double rows, and 20 cm between hills.

In the farmers’ practice, he applied one-half bags of 21-0-0 as basal then at 2-3 months after transplanting, he sidedressed the plants with the same amount of fertilizer.  

However, in the enhanced practice, he applied a mixture of 30 bags of processed chicken manure (PCM), 18 kilos of complete fertilizer (14-14-14), 36 kilos of 16-20-0, and 4 kilos of muriate of potash (0-0-60) as basal. Then, at 2-3 months after planting, he sidedressed 37 kilos of Urea. Thus, the soil fertility was enhnaced and the plants became robust.

In irrigating the plants, Gaudia followed the conventional practices in both farms which meant using only two liters of water per hill. He harvested the canes in both farms at 8-12 months after planting.

Basi production

To showcase the difference between the old and new methods of postharvest practices, Gaudia followed two contrasting ways of crushing the sugarcane. Canes in the farmers’ practice, were crushed using the traditional wooden equipment locally called dadapilan. This was driven by a carabao. In the enhanced practice, however, a crushing machine was used which was faster and produced cleaner juice.

After two hours of boiling the extracted juice, he put them in a clay jar called burnay. Still, he followed two contrasting ways of fermenting the juice to make it basi and vinegar. Juice derived from the farmers’ practice was mixed with dried leaves, bark, and fruits of the samak tree – all two kilos each. In the enhanced practice, he used the same amount of materials but he added in each jar one gallon of Iloco vinegar and 200 grams of dried yeast. These additional ingredients hastened the fermentation of the juice. To avoid aeration, he sealed the jars with cellophane instead of the conventional banana leaves.

After three days, he opened the jars and stirred the juice. Gaudia has proven that he can harvest the basi in just six months instead of the traditional seven months. Also, basi and vinegar produced employing  the enhanced practice were tasty and aromatic.

Production and profit

Gaudia found out that canes from the enhanced practice yielded more juice after the second and third production cycles. After the second cycle, he harvested 3,088  liters of juice from the farmers’ practice, and 4,080 liters from the enhanced practice.

Since he produced low class basi and vinegar from the farmers’ practice, he earned only P350 per jar which contained 19 liters, or a total gross of P57,050 from the 163 jars he fermented. In contrast, he earned P143,055 gross from the enhanced practice, or a difference of P85,915.

In the third production cycle, Gaudia still had big production output. He harvested 3,856 liters from the enhanced practice. When they were made into basi and vinegar, he grossed P142,800. In the farmers’ practice, he earned a gross of only P134,960 from the 2,640 liters he harvested or a difference of P86,328.

Deducting all that he spent in the second production cycle, he got a net profit of P54,833 from the farmers’ practice, while P107.357 from the enhanced practice. After the third cycle, he still got a very high profit from the ratoon crops. He got P45,668 from the farmers’ practice while P67,524 in the enhanced practice.