Alternanthera sessilis to treat high blood pressure

On Aug 1, 2007, I posted a blog on Alternanthera sessilis as a treatment for high blood pressure. A few weeks ago a friend asked me for it and I went to the wet market in Kepong to see if it was available. Not only was it available, but several vegetable stalls were selling it, and very cheaply too, at M$ 1.50 per bundle. Each bundle is enough to make three cups of herbal tea. It is quite pleasant to drink. I have tested it on myself, but as I do not have high blood pressure, I cannot vouch personally for its efficacy. However, I hear that this plant (a weed in wet places, easily propagated by cuttings)is now being sold in wet markets all over the country.

GM food and NGO pressure groups

It has been a long time since the last famine in Asia. Now food prices are rising and people are wondering whether there will be a shortage. Where will the next technological advance in crop productivity come from? Has the time come for GM (genetically modified) food?

If there is a choice between hunger and GM, there is no doubt GM will win the popular vote.

The anti-GM lobbies, which have run a successful campaign for two decades will soon be facing a crisis. As a scientist, I think the anti GM lobbies have been running an unreasonable campaign based on fear. A reasonable approach would have been to insist on strict regulation, safety tests and compulsory labelling.

When I was working in the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN) and CIFOR (Center for International Forestry Research) I was dismayed at how NGO pressure groups in Europe had hijacked the agendas of the development agencies in their countries and had indirectly taken control of the FAO, CIFOR, and other international agencies that depend on funding from those countries. Asians like myself in these organizations had very little influence on the direction of programmes, because our own countries were not footing the bills.

I had been an NGO leader myself in the Malaysian Nature Society in the 1970s and 1980s, but we were a home-grown NGO that did not receive any funding from overseas. The language of European-funded NGOs baffled us. They were, from the start, against big business, against the companies that were producing and marketing improved agricultural seeds, against GM crops, against oil palm, against logging. They were for the right of the poor to remain poor. They preached that shifting cultivation was good and sustainable. Subsistence agriculture was, to them, the way of the future (of course not for themselves, but for Asians and Africans). Developmental aid should only be only for the benefit of the 'poorest of the poor', not to help strengthen weak countries. As an Asian I felt insulted, so I quit my well-paid positions.

The NGOs are not entirely wrong, but they are irresponsible in forcing their social theories on societies to which they do not belong. Instead of promoting good governance, consultation, proper enquiry and research, they indulge in publicity-generating pressure tactics and short-cut dead end solutions. They have had relatively little influence in Malaysia and China and none at all in Singapore, but they are everywhere in Nepal, Philippines, Indonesia, and Africa. When I was in FAO, one consultant back from Ruanda was lyrical about how happy and sustainable Ruanda was, with every family cultivating its own plot of land and making do without cash--the root of all evil. This was Ruanda just before it erupted in ethnic strife and blood-letting. Are there more Ruandas on the way?

Post election euphoria

I cannot resist saying a few things about the elections in Malaysia in which the ruling coalition BARISAN won the right to form the federal government again but lost a large number of seats. It also lost control of 5 of the state governments. Right up to the eve of the elections, I was getting email and sms messages from people to vote for the opposition. I only got one message to vote for the BARISAN. There were legions of passionate supporters of the opposition, only a few lukewarm supporters of BARISAN. The BARISAN could not inspire volunteers to its cause. All its supporters expected to be paid, either up front or later in the form of rewards. On TV and in the streets, those who spoke for the opposition were more coherent, more intelligent and more convincing than those who spoke for the government. BARISAN lost the young, the intelligent and the passionate.

Ramin surprises

Ramin (Gonystylus bancanus), a timber exported by Indonesia and Malaysia, is at the centre of a controversy over whether the species should be banned from the timber trade. Ramin grows in peat swamp forests and such forests are disappearing because after extracting the timber, the swamp is often drained, and the land converted to agriculture. There is no incentive to save the forest because the ramin fails to regenerate. After 50 years of research, foresters have not figured out why ramin does not regenerate in nature.

Curious to find out more, I purchased 8 saplings (4 ft tall and rooted in polybags of clayey soil) from the FRIM nursery and took them home for observation. I placed them under a small tree in a row, watered them well, and went away on holiday for two days. It did not rain during those two days. When I came back, I found to my great surprise that the tough leathery leaves of the plants, especially of the four plants closest to the edge of the shade, had begun to dry and curl up. Six leaves had already been shed on the ground. I watered the plants liberally, but next day, another 60 leaves were shed, including leaves that had re-absorbed water and looked healthy. Next day, three more leaves were shed and the day after, another three were shed. The shedding stopped after that. By then two saplings had shed most of their leaves, one sapling was totally bare, and one had a few dry and dead leaves hanging on it.

Before interpreting these observations, let me digress a little. When a tree is stressed from shortage of water, it has three levels of reaction. If the stress is not severe, the tree recovers when watered and does not show any damage. If the water shortage is more acute, the tree forms an 'abscission layer' at the base of each leaf stalk, which has the effect of cutting off the leaf. By cutting off its leaves, the tree saves itself from drying out. If the drying is sudden and drastic, there is no time for abscission layers to form, and the leaves dry up and die on the tree.

Incidentally we can tell a lightning-struck tree from a tree dead from disease, because in the former the leaves are not shed whereas in the latter, they are.

In the case of my ramin plants, the four better-shaded plants recovered on watering. Of the four more-exposed plants, the one with dead leaves hanging on it is probably dead. The other three, having shed all or most of their leaves, are now stable and should recover.

It has certainly been a surprise to me that ramin is so sensitive to water stress. This is has not been reported before, but then, not many foresters take their experiments home and watch them closely.

Digging tools for the garden: fork versus changkul

Farmers and gardeners in Asia use one general purpose tool for digging, lifting soils, leveling the ground, and slicing off weeds at ground level. This is called the CHANGKUL in Malaysia. In the hands of an expert, the changkul is a very versatile, precise and cheap tool. For the the amateur, the European garden fork is a much better tool for digging. You place the fork exactly where you want dig, before pushing it into the ground. For lifting rhizomes and tubers, nothing can beat a fork.

The European garden fork has never caught on in Asia. Because a fork works like a lever in turning over heavy soils, the steel teeth and wooden handle must be able to absorb strong lateral force without breaking. Good forks are made of high quality steel and special timber. It is a curious fact that despite the abundance of timber species in Malaysia, only one Malaysian timber has ever made the grade as a resilient tool handle. This is 'tempinis', Streblus elongatus, formerly used for shoulder poles ('kandar' sticks)used in carrying heavy loads on the shoulders. The loads were balanced one at each end of the pole. This timber is no longer in the market, for lack of demand.

We won't moan the passing of the kandar stick, but it is a pity nobody is interested in improving the quality of locally-made hand tools, and bringing tempinis back into production.

Managing a grapevine in the humid tropics

In a mediterranean climate, grape vines are pruned back drastically after the grapes are harvested. The vines live through the winter in a leafless condition. Then in the spring, they produce new growth, in the process bearing leaves and flowers.

In the humid tropics, vines can grow throughout the year, but produce only leaves. I have found that when the vines are pruned back drastically and deleafed by hand, new buds will sprout after two or three weeks. If flowers are produced, they will be produced on inflorescences located in a very specific place: adjacent to the third leaf at the time of new growth. Nowhere else and at no other time! If the opportunity is missed, there is nothing to do except to give the plant a few months to grow and then repeat the process. Flowering is not guaranteed but you get another chance with each flush of new growth.

Unfortunately, my grapes are small and sour.

Solitary passionfruit bears fruit

According to the textbooks, solitary passionfruit plants will not bear fruits, because they require cross-pollination. A solitary plant that I am growing on a rooftop garden in Kuala Lumpur, seven storeys above ground, and far from any other passionfruit bears abundant fruits. The species is Passiflora edulis. I expect the seeds will produce self-fertile plants. I would be happy to send seeds to anybody who would like to try.