Dr. Mary Ann P. Sayoc, EWSC general manager, said Filipino vegetablLeade farmers have increased familiarity on the financial benefits of using hybrid seeds.

"The prospects are very good as farmers begin to realize that they just have to spend a little more for hybrid seed, and the return for this is 40 to 50 percent," she said in an interview.

As compared to conventional breeding where farmers just have to store seeds from the crops planted in the last season, hybrid reproduction gives more advantage in terms of yield, disease resistance and certain characteristics such as size or faster harvest as hybrid involves cross-breeding of two varieties with superior characteristics.

Sayoc said the hybrid vegetable industry has also been benefitted by the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) program for increased propagation of high-yielding hybrid rice and hybrid corn.

And yet, she said DA’s hybrid program for high value crops is adversely affected by government’s fiscal constraints.

"DA’s (Department of Agriculture) regional offices have been pushing for (farmers’ adoption of) hybrid vegetables. But since the budget is limited, some of them prefer to recommend ordinary seeds which I think is not correct" because farmers get more from hybrid than what they invested, she said.

Given intensive hybridization, the Philippines can displace much of its upland vegetable imports as many local farms can produce cabbage, cauliflower, salad tomato, sweet pepper, and carrots.

Among EWSC’s prospective hybrid crops are tropical vegetables such as the hybrid upo which can give a higher yield of 38 percent compared to traditional breeds. This variety is particularly a hit among consumers because of its convenient small size of just about eight to 10 inches which is useful for a onetime cooking, eliminating need for refrigeration or cutting wastage.

Another tropical vegetable is the hybrid patola which yields up to 30 metric tons (MT) per hectare, has long straight, dark bright green color, and is harvested early over a longer harvest period.

Other EWSC hybrids are sierra madre sitao, snapbeans norman, okra smooth green EW-select, radish speedy, hybrid sinta papaya, mustaza monteverde, kangkong tsina, petchay pavito, hybrid hot pepper djayngo, sandigan, hybrid eggplant casino, hybrid muskmelon princesa, hybrid cucumber champ, and hybrid sweet ruby.

But local farms also need to improve their technologies in order to maximize yield and end up helping cut the country’s vegetable imports, Sayoc said.

This may involve the use of greenhouses which protect crops from destructive winds or extreme heat or drip irrigation which economizes water use by sending just the right amount of water to each plant . Drip irrigation is also normally used to distribute fertilizer to plants.

Other effective farm devices are trellises used in growing cucurbits like ampalaya, upo, patola, melon, cucumber, legumes, and solanaceous crops. Trellises help save on space, easy caring of plants, help protect plants from rains or winds and from rotting when lying on soggy soil, and help shield plants from crawling pests.

Other farm techniques which Filipino vegetable farmers may adopt is the use of seeding trays which facilitate seedling transplanting and the use of plastic mulches or plastics that cover the entire plot, providing only holes for plant stems.

Mulches promote better crop and faster harvest by about seven to 14 days by raising soil temperature in the planting bed, reducing light penetration to the soil, increasing aeration, preventing weeds, cutting soil water loss and providing uniform soil moisture.

EWSC, founded by a Dutch breeder in the early 1980s, accounts for 70 to 75 percent of the local hybrid vegetable market and 55 percent of the total vegetable market. It has presence in Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand.

It maintains extensive germplasms or gene banks of plant with diverse characteristics such as resistance to pests, diseases, and environmental stress and keeps plant pathology programs for vegetables’ disease resistance. This includes a program for tissue culture involving reproduction of crops by culturing of seedlings from sterile laboratory rather than reproduction through seeds.