Scented wood chips can be a good pesticide, an organic farmer said.
Lin Te-cheng (林德正) has been growing organic greenhouse tomatoes in Jiouru Township (九如), Pingtung County, on cypress and camphor wood chips since visiting his brother-in-law’s sculpture studio more than a year.
Lin said that upon entering the studio, he was struck by the fragrant smell of the wood chips cut from cypress and camphor driftwood brought down by Typhoon Morakot in 2009.
After taking some chips home and spreading them on his farm, Lin discovered that the wood was not only a good fertilizer, but also an effective pest repellent, making it a useful tool for organic farming.
Lin said that before he became an organic farmer, he had to bathe and change quickly after using pesticides and could not meet his friends for fear that the chemicals could harm them. Today, he no longer has such worries, he said.
Besides scented wood, Lin also uses home-made organic fertilizers and essential oils that are effective for pest control, using ingredients such as citronella and cypress.
The tomatoes, which he said have thinner skins and less fiber than other tomatoes, have a delicate and sweet taste, as well as a special aroma.
Lin, who is currently applying for organic certification from Universal Certification Service Co, said although crop yields from organic farming are only about half of that of traditional farming using pesticide, he found it a challenge worth undertaking.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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