Power Plant Girls.... and Boys

         Hello, bloggers! After our tour with the cows, we headed to our next destination, IPB or the Institute of Plant Breeding and we are now going to discuss to you our journey in IPB.    
    

Our excitement ranged to the 100^th, as we walked and passed by the rustling sounds of the plants and aromatic flowers. As we entered the door of the institute, we started looking around for even just a minute. For us, the Science Adventurers; it was the best 1-minute glance in an institute. The lecturer discussed the growth stages of plants, the loss of water in the farm fields and how it affects the nutrition the people taking it. If the water is too much, it would cause the rapid decrease in number of plants.

Here’s another one, aside from rice, there is a newly introduced type of corn that will fill your appetite from morning to dinner; white corn. It has essential nutrients such as calcium and many more. The White Corn can be a substitute of rice for the rice crisis we had experienced in the past few years.

Now we met so many plants in our tour around IPB but one plant truly caught our attention.

A Dragon Fruit Tree-
Hylocereus undatus

 

1.   Name

Common Name: Dragon Fruit Tree or Pitaya

Scientific Name: Hylocereus undatus

2.   Characteristics

     We chose the plant because it had a cool name, dragon fruit tree. The tree looks interesting and different from other fruit trees. The dragon fruit also looks fascinating because of its round, often red or pink colored fruit with scales. Not to mention the fruit’s sweet and delicious taste.

3.  Ecological Relationship

     The dragon fruit tree is a producer because it can produce its own food by photosynthesizing. Farmers plant the tree and harvest the fruit when it’s ripe for the people to eat and enjoy its delicious taste.

These are just some of what we’ve learned and seen and it’s just the beginning of our Los Baños field trip! Stay tuned for our next destination: The Museum of Natural History!