Garden Talk: The Sage Advice

By Zahra Nasir

Indigenous in all countries surrounding the Mediterranean, sage has been cultivated throughout Europe for hundreds of years. Zahra Nasir teaches gardening-buffs how to grow the herb in Pakistani soil

Well, ladies, make no bones about it, if you want to stand up and make a statement about who really rules the roost; simply plant sage in your garden. If your sage flourishes then this is an indelible sign to all and sundry that matriarchy prevails in your home. But on the other hand, if your sage withers and dies then quickly pull it out, hide it away, dispose it off quietly, for if someone finds out then everyone will know you have submitted to male domination albeit Taliban style or otherwise. Sage you see, is and has from ancient times, been considered a very female herb.

There are actually around 900 different kinds of sage, botanically known as ‘Salvias’. Sage is a member of the ‘Lamiaceae’ family of plants but the one we are talking about here is that good old medicinal and culinary herb ‘Salvia officinalis’ or ‘Common’ sage although there really isn’t anything at all common about its myriad properties.

Members of this huge genus are, except for a 100 or so, aromatic and can be annuals, biennials or perennials and can be evergreen or deciduous with, mostly, strong woody stems. The sage in question, with attractive velvety, silvery green, dare I say ‘sage green’ leaves which it may or, being awkward, may not hang on to all year round is a hardy perennial. Although its bare woody stems are not at all ornamental, its other properties more than make up for this with its spectacular spires of blue flowers in the spring proffering a splendid apology for anything it may have done to offend you.

Indigenous in all the countries surrounding the Mediterranean, including North Africa, sage has been widely cultivated throughout Europe for literally hundreds of years. It was introduced to North America sometime in the 1600s and was so venerated by the Chinese during the same period of history (should that be ‘her-story’ in this instance?) that they happily bartered three chests of top quality tea for a single chest of dried sage with European traders.

As its origins belie, this particular sage adores sunny, well drained positions in reasonably light, sandy soil although it will tolerate, my own plants are an example, much heavier, humus rich soil as long as it never ever gets water logged as this means almost instant death. Whilst sage is, or rather was, considered to have the ability to bring people back to life if one is to believe ancient Druid and Roman lore, sadly it cannot resurrect itself and when it decides to give up the ghost… it does!

Hippocrates, the ancestor of modern doctors and their Hippocratic oath, Dioscorides and Marcus Aurelius’ doctor by the name of Galen all promoted the use of sage for a wide variety of female illnesses and problems and, much later on, Pliny the Elder venerated it as a top notch herb for treating wounds and snake bites and its botanical name ‘Salvia’ is actually derived from the Latin word ‘Salvere’ which means to be in the best of health. Closer to home in a manner of speaking, in the Arab world, sage is considered to be brain food and was once prescribed for boosting intelligence.

Growing to a height of approximately three feet if it is happy, much less if it isn’t quite comfortable, sage is an astringent, antiseptic herb with a very strong and pleasing aroma. It has been found to relax spasms, prevent sweating, improve digestion, help with liver function and has anti-inflammatory and anti-depressant uses. Modern herbalists prescribe it, taken internally, for indigestion, liver problems, flatulence, to ease lactation and for a whole range of female problems as identified by the ancient Romans. Externally it is used for nasty insect bites, sore throats and mouths plus various skin infections.

Then of course it has numerous culinary uses too. The pungent leaves can be used in all sorts of meat, fish and poultry dishes, a Christmas turkey stuffed with sage and onion being a prime example. The leaves, fresh or dried, make an excellent herb tea or can be used for adding a delicious flavour to homemade cheese and, having told you all of the above I’m certain you, ladies in particular, would like to cultivate a few plants for home use.

The first thing you need is seed of course and I have found good quality German seed in the market here which has (at least mine did) a germination rate of about 90 per cent. I paid Rs. 80 per packet last April and ended up with four dozen healthy plants which, in my opinion, was a very good deal.

The hard black seed, almost round in shape, should be sown in pots or trays of good, well draining compost. About quarter of an inch deep is ideal. Place the pots/trays in a sunny location; keep them watered but not overly wet and the seeds should begin to germinate after 10 to 14 days. Don’t plant the seeds too close together, three inches apart all round is ideal, to allow the seedlings room to grow without having to endure competition from their neighbours. Once they have developed four to six healthy leaves, carefully transplant them into individual 10-inch pots or plant them out, one to two feet apart, directly in the garden. Those of you without an actual garden can keep them in pots which, in adverse weather conditions such as heavy rain, can be kept in a sheltered place.

As previously mentioned, this particular kind of sage is a perennial plant but, sadly, that doesn’t mean it lives forever. It should be pretty and productive for three to four years after which it will tend to get rather woody, have fewer leaves and not be so attractive therefore you should start a new batch off every couple of years or so. Once you have got an established sage plant it can easily be increased by taking cuttings during late spring or early autumn.

Now, the all-important climatic requirements. Sage the sun lover needs sunshine and dry growing conditions. If you happen to reside in Karachi then sow the seed during October or November and keep your fingers crossed that the plants produce lots of leaves before humidity creeps up during early summer as they may not like this at all. Keeping them on a sunny, covered veranda where dew/humidity don’t directly fall on them, will encourage them to survive the summer but it could be that you need to treat them as an annual plant. In Lahore, Rawalpindi and Islamabad, you can sow the seed either in September/October or during late February/March and, as humidity tends to be a little lower than in Karachi, the plants will have more chance of being perennial. In Quetta, Peshawar and cooler hilly regions seed should be sown during spring and, more than likely, the plants will be perfectly good perennials.

Indigenous species of wild sage are found almost all over Pakistan but, whilst perfectly useable, they are not quite as ‘strong’ as Salvia officinalis and neither are their flowers so eye-catching. A useful species, easily grown as an annual although it is really a biennial, is ‘Salvia sclarea’ or Clary sage, an equally useful herb with highly decorative purple, pink or white bracts, and whilst it is very different from ‘Salvia splendens’, the normal sock-you-in-the-eye garden variety which doesn’t have any of the medicinal or culinary merits mentioned above, it is a wonderful addition to anyone’s garden.

Sage, in any form, should not be taken internally for any length of time and not at all if you happen to be pregnant or suffer from epilepsy. Salvia officinalis has a high content of volatile oil of which up to 50 per cent is Thujone and in excess this is toxic. Do not concoct your own herbal remedies as this can be dangerous, please leave this to the experts.

Source: The Dawn Review

Published on: 10/23/2012

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Wheat: Planning for better yield (بہتر پیداوار کے لئے منصوبہ بندی: گندم)

The wheat is sown the world over on an area touching 220 million hectares producing 600 million tons with an average of 2700 kg. of grain per hectare.

The Main land China brings 30 million hectares the largest are in the world followed by Russian Federation, India, USA, Australia, Canada, Turkey and Pakistan.

As far as the highest yield is concerned, France produces 7200 kg per hectare. Who leads other countries because it has much longer growing season of winter wheat? It is rather more appropriate to compare our wheat grain yields with countries of similar climatic and eco-zones, like Mexico and Egypt. Their yields are much higher owing both genetic constitution of cultivars and environment provided to them to express their biological potential.

Since Mexico and Pakistan are located in analogous ecological zones therefore, introduction of Mexican varieties in the country in sixties verities in the country in sixties ushered an era of green revolution. But unfortunately the pace of development could not be maintained for long and we now lag much behind the Mexican yields, who have gone for ahead of us producing 3900 Kg. of wheat grain per hectare as compared to 2491 K. for us in the year 1999, the best season. According to FAO statistics for 1995, among spring wheat growing countries Egypt has fantastic yield by producing 5422 kg. of grain per hectare where as Indian Punjab producing 4090 kg. and even India leads us in average yield by producing 2559 kg. notwithstanding three times largest area as compared to ours.

In our country wheat is cultivated largely (80 per cent), in irrigated areas whereas, rest in rain-fed. The yield and production in latter part of the country is predominantly controlled by rains during growing season, which usually are erratic. Hence yields are much lower during season of low precipitation.

There are of course three kinds of wheat cultivars, the long duration, the medium and short duration varieties. The wheat yields usually start declining after 20th Nov sowing at the rate of 20 kg per day.

Hence efforts must be made to plant it at optimum time. In cotton areas the sticks are by and large used as fuel in domestic house hold. Big heaps of cotton sticks can be seen along the roadside and in villages.

There is a great need to educate growers as to how much yield is last due to burning of sticks. So as to restores the soil fertility at least 80 per cent sticks may be buried in soil. In order to enhance the decomposition half a bag of urea per acre may be incorporated in the soil after the stick burial.

In view of numerous benefits through the addition of organic matter from cotton sticks, may be made mandatory for each farmer. In case wheat sowing is delayed owing to late maturity of cotton, wheat may be sown in standing crop, if there is low or no incidence of weeds. However in rice tract wheat should be sown on proper time immediately after crop harvest. In rice zone a sizable area must be brought under this season legumes, the chickpeas and lentils. It is of course not so difficult to reap their yields up to 1000 kg per acre, which will bring more finances to the growers as compared to raising wheat.

Adequate quantity of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash may be applied to harvest maximum grain. If phosphorus is added adequately it will not only help to realize good harvest, the following crop of cotton shall utilize the remaining residual phosphorus, without adding more of this element to cotton.

In my opinion there are three main factors, which largely contribute towards low wheat yields, the optimum time of sowing, prevalence of high intensity of weeds, imbalance use of fertilizer. The low level of organic matter is also important for holding the yield. In irrigated areas the crop is generally sown either after the harvest of cotton or paddy.

In most of the cases it is customary that farmers neither add organic matter nor farmyard manure to maintain fertility, thus resulting in low yields. In order to sow wheat at optimum time the cotton breeders in collaboration with cotton agronomists must try to reduce the life span of cotton crop without hampering the yield and deteriorating the quality of lint. In this way not only have substantial saving on the management of cotton but also timely sowing of wheat to realize maximum yields. As far as weeds are concerned it is estimated that decline in wheat yield ranges from 15 to 40 per cent or even more in some cases, which is indeed a great loss towards food self-sufficiency.

As my experience goes tit is much worst in certain localities where it appears as if wheat is an unwarted and obnoxious plant. It is in fact a glaring negligence on the part of extension workers and the grower himself.

The extension workers with the help of farmers may try to delineate the areas of high infestation of "Dumbi Sitti" and wild oats.

The farmers in such areas may be advised to control them through agronomic practices or herbicide treatment or removing the weed plants just after earring because at that stage it is easy to differentiate between both the weed and wheat plants.

If these weeds are not controlled now they will spread like a wild fire in coming years in whole of wheat areas. Thee weeds have capability to produce large quantities of seed, which is always shed before wheat harvest. Henceforth infestation increases at an alarming pace. These two weeds along with "It Sit" can be used as biological warfare in agriculture. On the other hand in barani areas "Pohalli" is quite a common weed, which can be easily seen while travelling by air, road or rail after the harvest of wheat.

The abundance of this weed undoubtedly is a main factor for low yield in the area. The Pohalli remain green much after harvest of crop. At that time it is an appropriate time to launch a campaign to eradicate it by uprooting and burning. Two or three exercise will help to whip out the weed in barani areas. Henceforth this year may be declared a Pohalli eradication year. The road sides and sides of rail tracks may also be cleared of it.

The pace of yield increase per hectare during past twenty years has been awfully poor rather frustrating since 1980 to 01. The population growth however, over whelmed the increase in yield per unit area therefore; the enlarged demand of wheat consumption was met by bringing more area under crop.

Which certainly is not a good omen. But for how long increase in area under crop shall come to our rescue. This problem has to be tackled through serious and wise planning and execution.

First of all we shall have to get rid of non-technocrats from lowest level to highest in the ministry of food, agriculture and livestock and induct able selfless agricultural scientists but not the pseudo ones. More funds have to be infused for research and transfer of technology. At the same time we must motivate the general public to diversify the so-called dietary pattern, is greatly imbalanced, which required to be substituted by balanced through intake of nutritive food, so as to reduce unnecessary burden on wheat. Besides this we must substantially boost yield per unit area. Thus placing this area under oil seeds, vegetables, fruits, pulses, and flowers. Also considerable area may be brought under fodder to raise ore animals for milk and meat production. Last but not the least we ought to arrest population growth.

With the improvement in agronomic practices we must try to equate with Egyptian or across the Punjab wheat yields in less than three or at the most five years.

Storage facilities: There are many stored grain pests, which destroy a considerable quantity of produce while in store in villages. Efforts may be made to eliminate the losses. If these losses are controlled it is possible that we may not have to import food grains any longer.


Courtesy Daily Dawn, 10 December 2001

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Green Agriculture—The Next Hot Investment Sector?

Judging by the turnout and interest, green agriculture just might be the next hot investment sector.

Eric Wesoff: March 25, 2010

A surprising number of Silicon Valley investors and bankers gathered in the bucolic confines of the Four Seasons Hotel off of Highway 101 in Palo Alto, California to attend the Agriculture 2.0 Silicon Valley Event. I would hazard to say that the closest many of these folks have gotten to agriculture and soil is the Whole Foods produce aisle or perhaps a vineyard. (I actually had a brief but wildly successful stint as a commercial organic farmer, but that's another story.)

It's a testament to the power of the greentech meme that more than 250 Silicon Valley types came out to learn about sustainable farming, water, GMOs, seeds and biodiversity. In the audience were investors from Mohr Davidow, Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, USVP, Redpoint, Rockport, Khosla Ventures, DFJ, Foundation Capital and many more.

It's possible that VCs can do for agriculture what they've done for online dog food delivery, grocery delivery, and gyroscopic scooters. That is, invest in a field they know nothing about, and totally jam it up.

That being said, and now that I've gotten that last bit of snarkiness out of my system -- there are more than a few venture firms with experience in these specialized fields and a few investment professionals with applicable domain experience. And certainly, many of the investors speaking today have their heart in the right place. It was the first time I heard pro-vegetarian views and tales of yoga practices on a VC panel.

Panelist and Kleiner Perkins partner Amol Deshpande has worked for agriculture giant Cargill, at an indoor tilapia aquaculture firm and co-founded a company exploring germplasm in garlic. He believes that there is an investment opportunity in the agriculture space, but it is "painful and difficult to scale." Since coming to Kleiner Perkins he's been involved in two deals that are "notionally affiliated" with sustainable agriculture -- next generation organic waste management by Harvest Power and APT which is focused on water issues that are largely caused by agriculture. Deshpande describes himself as "very interested in this space."

Certainly the markets are huge. Agriculture accounts for 4 percent of the California economy according to Tom Tomich of UC Davis' Agricultural Sustainability Institute (agriculture also accounts for 8 percent of California energy use, 20 percent of California's land area and more than 40 percent of the state's fresh water use). Tomich also said, "The idea of the dumb farmer is truly a myth -- don't make that mistake," and, "Agricultural innovation responds to market forces."

Despite the size of the market, the big question for investors is: Are VC growth expectations and scaling requirements even feasible in the admittedly huge agricultural markets? Limited partners in VC firms aren't going to lower their expectations in order to invest in farms simply because it's the right thing to do. The hope is just as greentech became mainstream, so can green ag.

According to KP's Deshpande, "At KP we try to be creative, asking how can we change that industry." Along those lines, he mentioned in vitro meat production. (See this article in Beef Magazine and check out the work of Jason Metheny.)

Other investors with a green agriculture focus include Stu Rudick of Mindful Investors. Mindful invests exclusively in the natural, organic and sustainable consumer products and services marketplace. One of their portfolio firms, Organic Girl, sells organic greens and vegetables and had $150 million in sales in their second year of business.

And Jim Schultz of Illinois-based Open Prairie Ventures is also focused on agriculture with offices actually located in the middle of farmlands. One of their portfolio firms, Vestaron, is developing green pesticides based on spider venom.

Issues that can be addressed by green ag investors include water, nitrogen, phosphorous, synthetic fertilizer, local foods, aquaculture, pests, and the move towards organics.

Here is a small crop of examples of green ag companies that presented or exhibited at Agriculture 2.0:

AeroFarm Systems: Calling themselves "The Future of Urban Agriculture," AeroFarm is developing aeroponic technology for growers of "leafy greens" in the $4 billion bag salad market. The design of their farming systems uses no soil, a minimum of fertilizers and water, and can be stacked to maximize space. The company envisions using buildings in NYC to grows salad greens with enormous yields using LED-based lighting. The firm is pre-revenue, has raised $500,000 from The Quercus Trust and 21Ventures and is seeking a $5 million Round A.

Inka Biospheric Systems: Vertical food growing systems and "micro-farms" that support hydroponics -- suitable for urban gardens.

Local Dirt: An early-stage firm that matches producers of locally grown food with buyers.

Marrone Bio Innovations: Environmentally responsible products for weed, plant disease and invasive pest management. Marrone uses naturally occurring microorganisms for Integrated Pest Management -- insecticides, herbicides and products for controlling invasive mussels in waterways.

Open Blue Sea Farms: Open ocean, caged "free-range" fish farmers. Open Blue’s initial species is Cobia, a sashimi-grade, marine white fish, targeted for the gourmet seafood market, the upper 20% of the seafood industry in the U.S.

Pasteuria Bioscience: Nematodes, also known as roundworms, are the most numerous multicellular animals on earth and many of them are parasitic on human agricultural products such as turfgrass and strawberries. Chemical control of nematodes is a multi-billion dollar business and Pasteuria Bioscience has developed a cultivation method for naturally occurring soil bacteria that specifically attack plant-parasitic nematodes.

PurFresh: 20 percent to 40 percent of fresh food is lost to over-ripening or decay. PurFresh has a family of products that spans the food supply chain in pre-harvest, post-harvest, transportation and retail to address this issue. Their transport product "snaps" into marine containers and kills mold, bacteria, viruses as well as eliminates ethylene, which accelerates ripening. The unit also measures atmospheric and physical conditions of the food environment, such as door breach, CO2, and O2, and communicates this information via satellite. The firm has 500 customers and 41 direct employees. They just closed a $10 million Round D. Earlier this month, they made our Top 50 Startups list.

Solum: Solum makes a field-deployable measurement tool that gives immediate answers on soil nutrient needs. Fertilizer amounts to 40 to 50 percent of the operating expense for corn but it is currently applied in an inefficient manner based on average values rather than per-acre needs. Solum allows farmers to apply fertilizer in the right amount, at the right place, at the right time.

Verdant Earth Technologies: Developed at the University of Arizona, Verdant’s system is a controlled-environment high-yield agriculture process that will allow crops to be grown anywhere, with no soil and little water, in shipping-type containers that provide a growing environment for a variety of foods. The system can produce up to many times more food per square foot than conventional farming methods.



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