Primarily, Milea Bee Farm in San Jose, Batangas is a small farm dedicated to the propagation and care of various species of honey producing bees. However, in 2014, its owner, Edilee Rosales, came to visit a friend in Tanauan who happens to be growing vanilla orchids. Her friend offered her some vanilla cuttings to try planting in her bee farm.
Luckily, after two years, Rosales was able to harvest the first vanilla pods, which gave her additional substantial profit from then on.
A PRODUCT OF RESEARCH, TRAINING, AND SELFSTUDY
Since Rosales did not have prior knowledge about growing vanilla plants, she did self study, online research, and attended seminars and training. And as if fate was on her side, the bees, which thrive in the multitudes on her farm, did their jobs in pollinating the vanilla flowers, which produced the priced pods. Normally, in those areas scarce of pollinating bees, it would usually take three years when using the hand pollination technique. Here, women would go around from flower to flower, fertilizing the vanilla orchids by pressing the stamen and pistil together.
These vanilla pods command a high price in the market due to high dem and less supply. A Milea farm worker shows harvested vanilla pods that ready for sun drying.
In Milea Bee Farm’s case, one pollinator can pollinate 800 to 1,000 flowers a day. This elicited excitement for Rosales, thus, she propagated more and more vanilla plants and pursued the process from harvesting of pods (often incorrectly called beans) until marketing.
SPECIES PREFERRED
Rosales grows Vanilla planifolia, which is a species of vanilla orchid and is easy to grow. It is native to Mexico and Central America and is one of the primary sources for vanilla flavoring due to its high vanillin content. Vanillin is found mostly in the seeds and oily liquid surrounding the seeds in the pods.
This story is from the March 2020 edition of Agriculture.
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This story is from the March 2020 edition of Agriculture.
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