What saved the abaca of Odikin?

Recent photos (above and below) of healthy abaca plants almost as big as the average banana thriving disease-free in the mountain village of Odikin (Santa Barbara) along the slopes of Mount Bulusan.

While researches and government funded programs are still on-going as of this writing in a bid to rehabilitate the abaca industry which was almost wiped out in the Bicol Region because of the dreaded bunchy top virus (scientific researches already include cloning of abaca accessions resistant to the disease to searching for a local variety that can be proven immune to the bunchy top virus), here comes these well, very healthy looking abaca crops (photos) greeting me in my mountain stroll early week of April.

I was expecting an almost annihilated abaca population based on my several readings on the subject. So this comes as a surprise! Is the abaca 'variety'of Odikin and neighboring mountain villages resistant to the virus? Is the local accession growing here has the genetic make-up to ward off the disease?

My main guess is that these abaca crops were shielded by the ecosystem itself. Odikin's rich biodiversity  creates a natural form of protection not unlike to a healthy body that wards off diseases and infections. Observing the assorted crops and wild flora growing side by side where these abaca also thrive one could safely conclude that the seemingly forested farms provide a natural check and balance of pests and diseases. The long held principle being espoused by the natural farming system that nature has a built-in healing and protection mechanism that controls and prevents the spread of pests and diseases among plants seems to work here. Nature heals itself as long as the ecosystem remains healthy.

This observation however calls on abaca research institutions to check on these local 'resistant' abaca crops in the village of Odikin. A thorough study on why they were saved from the destructive abaca disease perhaps will contribute much to update abaca cultivation practices. A scientific documentation will be most helpful.

Abaca in the form of Manila hemp locally referred to as 'bandala'  was one of the major agricultural products of Bulusan next only to coconut. The state of abaca farming in Bulusan were discussed in several posts in Pamughaton, a Bulusanon web site as follows: Industriya sa bakilid, Halayhayan and Namandala. These posts echo the sad reality of Bulusan's abaca farmers and the parahag-ot i.e. abaca strippers.

FIDA (Fiber Industry Development Authority of the Department of Agriculture) released information on  abaca's agricultural history reads: "The abaca plant is indigenous to the Philippines whose warm, wet climate and volcanic soils are particularly suited to its cultivation. It has been grown in the Philippines for centuries, long before the Spanish occupation.  When Magellan and his companions arrived in Cebu in 1521, they noticed that the natives were wearing clothes made from the fiber of abaca plant, noting further that the weaving of the fiber was already widespread in the island."

Photos by Alma P. Gamil
in Santa Barbara, Bulusan, Sorsogon
Philippines