Introduction to agricultural Commodity and • Adlai is a great whole grain alternative

Enterprise Development because it is a great source of energy,

complex carbohydrates, protein, dietary
& Post Harvest Handling and Seed Technology
fiber, and minerals such as
By: Leonard Fernando phosphorous, niacin, riboflavin, and
thiamine.
Christian Blasi

Planting management
1. Choose a well-lit area to plant your
seeds.
• Examine the back area of your yard and
see if your plot has a lot of access to
sunlight and rain. Adlai plants tend to
ADLAI thrive in cooler, moderate temperatures,
Coix lacryma-jobi like 41 to 50 °F (5 to 10 °C).
Unknown to many Filipinos, Adlai also called 2. Find an area where you can comfortably
Job’s Tears (Coix lacryma-jobi L.) belongs to space your seeds.
the family Poaceae or the grasses, the same
family to which wheat, corn, and rice belong. • Prepare to plant your seeds 60 cm (24
in) apart, and keep your rows of seeds
But unlike weeds, the stem of adlai could grow 90 cm (35 in). Keep these
from 1 to 3 meters tall (from 3 to nearly 10 measurements in mind as you check the
feet). The grains, which come in white or soil with a measuring tape beforehand.
brown, in some instances, are spherical in
shape and have a groove at one end, become 3. Pick an area with relatively smooth soil
the source of (staple) food of many native that’s easy to plow.
people particularly in the highlands. • Don’t plant your seeds in rocky areas
• Adlay is the native Philippine name for with tough soil. While Adlai seeds are
the plant known to us as the source of hardy, they need to be able to plant
foods sturdy roots in the soil. Instead, tap the
soil to see if it’s smooth and moist—
• "Job's tears." Only the hard-shelled above all else, Adlai seeds tend to thrive
beadlike forms are grown in this country in moist soil conditions.
and Europe as an ornamental novelty.
4. Cover your planting area with compost
• Some of the grain varieties of adlay that and manure.
grow in the Philippines have
• Find a small or large section of land in
• a soft hull that can easily be broken your yard that you can dedicate to your
between the fingers. Like its American Adlai rice. Cover this section of your
relative, Indian corn, adlay lacks gluten, garden with a thin layer and compost
but is richer in fat than either corn or and manure, as Adlai seeds tend to
rice, making it a better balanced food grow better in pre-fertilized soil.
than any other tropical grain crop.

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• The basal organic fertilizer (animal Give your plants about a month and a
manure) application was employed at half to keep growing, then move some
rate of 200g per hill before sowing the more soil around the base of your
seeds. growing plants. This helps provide a
little extra support as your Adlai plants
keep growing.
5. Plow
• Go over your fertilized soil with a hand
3. Pour water into the trenches until
plow so it’s primed for planting. As an
they’re full and refill them as needed.
extra precaution, plow over the soil at
least 1 more time, so you won’t have Use a hose or watering can to fill your
any difficulty planting or tending to your trenches with water, which will help
garden later on. keep your Adlai seedlings well-
nourished. Refill these trenches on an
as-needed basis whenever the water
6. Soak your seeds in lukewarm levels get low so your growing plants
water for 14 hours. won’t dry out.

 Fill a bowl with water, then dump a large Get in the habit of checking on your
handful of seeds into the water. Give the garden each day or once every other
seeds 8 hours to soften a bit, and day.
another 6 hours to incubate, or get
4. Remove any visible weeds 3-4
ready to plant. weeks after planting your seeds.
 You don’t want to plant dry seeds in the
soil, or else they won’t grow as Keep an eye out for any other unwanted
successfully. plants peeking through the soil between
your mounds of soil. Remove these
Planting management weeds as soon as you see them, or else
they’ll continue to steal nutrients from
1. Create small mounds of soil with 2 your Adlai plants.
seeds in each.
It may take several weeks before you
Take a handful of loosened soil and start noticing weeds. You can do this on
make a compact pile in the flat soil an as-needed basis.
between 2 trenches. Stick 2 seeds in
this mound, then create additional
mounds along the flat section of soil. Do
Pest Management
your best to space your seeds around
60 cm (24 in) apart, so they have plenty Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
of space to grow. Make these mounds practices were employed using
at least 1 to 2 in (2.5 to 5.1 cm) tall so Trichogramma evanescence to control
your seeds are completely covered. Stem borer.
• Is a genus of minute polyphagous
wasps that are endosparasitoids of
2. Add more soil along the base of
insects eggs. Trichogramma is one
each mound after 45 days.
around 80 genera from the family
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 Trichogrammatidae, with over 200 agronomic traits of adlai by making
species worldwide. mutant varieties that yield more grain
and mature earlier, while also having
• Trichogramma wasps are used for
shorter heights to make the crops more
control on numerous crops and plants;
resistant to lodging during typhoons.
these includes cotton, sugarcane,
vegetables and forests.

Adlai Stem Rust Harvesting and Post Harvest

Operations
• Is caused by fungus Puccinia graminus
in 1999 a race of this fungus. • The crop can be harvested by cutting its
branches and stems at one food from
ground level at 184 days.
6. Trim away the branches to harvest
• Adlai can be separated from panicle by
the Adlai threshing, and/or smashing (lambos).
Dry grains to 14% moisture content
Look for small, bead-shaped seeds (MC).
growing off the sides of the plant,
connected to small branches. Snip away • Adlai can be milled through rice and
these seeds and gather them in a corn mills. It has a 60% milling recovery
basket, but leave the rest of the plant (depending on the varieties).
intact. You can harvest your Adlai plant
• Ratooning can be done 2-3 times after
around 5-6 times before the growing
harvest of the main crop.
season ends.
• Ratooning is the agricultural practices
.
of harvesting a monocot crop by cutting
Different Varieties most of the above ground portion but
leaving the roots and the growing shoot
Ginampay varity of Adlai is suitable in apices intact so as to allow the plants to
Tangub City as manifested by recover and produces a fresh crop in the
comparable yield with those planned in next season.
other locations in Mindanao.
Primary processing practices
Gulian and Ginampay are early
maturing varities obtained an average of Primary processing involves several
18 and 13 unfilled grains. different processes, designed to clean, sort
and remove the inedible fractions from the
Pulot was considered resistant to the grains.
infestation of pest and disease since it
obtained the lowest number of infilled • Primary processing of adlai includes
grains. cleaning, grading, hulling, milling,
pounding, grinding, tempering,
parboiling, soaking, drying, sieving.
Gamma radiation
Using gamma radiation, PNRI has been
working since 2013 to improve the
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Threshing Adlai has the highest food energy
content (356 kcal) compared
• Threshing is the removal of grains from
to corn (135 kcal), white rice (110 kcal)
the rest of the plant. It involves three
or brown rice (129 kcal).
different operations: Separating the
grain from the panicle; sorting the grain Health benefits and uses of the
from the straw; winnowing the chaff from Commodity
the grain.
• Unlike regular rice, adlai has a low
Winnowing glycemix index, which means that is
slowly digested, absorbed, and
• Winnowing is the separation of the
metabolized, causing a slower rise in
grains from the chaff or straw. It is
blood glucose and insulin levels.
traditionally carried out by lifting and
tossing the threshed material so that the • Because of this adlai is beneficial to
lighter chaff and straw get blown to one those who suffer from diabetes or high
blood sugar.
• side while the heavier seeds fall down
vertically. • Global impact to the economy
• Much recently the group celebrity chef,
Marvin Agustin is a co-owner of its adlai
Storage
rice production and on a press release
Dried grains are stored in bulk until sent to this publication, the group called
required for processing. this a worthy investment due to the
numerous benefits.
The grains should be inspected
regularly for signs of spoilage and the • These are difficults times, after all.
moisture content tested. People are suffering due to economic
challenges brought on by the corona
If the grain has picked up moisture it virus pandemic. To buy adlai is to
should be re-dried. Grains are often contribute to the well being of our
protected with economy.
insecticides and must be stored in
rodent-proof containers.
Adlai Products
As food source, Adlai is as versatile as
rice. It can be cooked and processed as
main ingredient for the all-time rice-
based kakanin such as maja
blanca, sinukmani,
champorado, polvoron, and turones
de adlai to name a few.
A tea can be made from the parched
seeds while beers and wines are made
from its fermented grains. Coffee or tea
is made from the roasted seed.
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