 One of the key decisions we have to make now early in the season is how do we how do we want to manage our nutrients? Because we know that we want to somehow achieve a yield of like maybe seven tons per hectare So we need to get quite a bit of nutrients into that plant and we want to do it in a very efficient way and Using whatever we have is our best management recommendation We came up after many years of research with tools that farmers and extension brokers can use and I'm going to use one of these tools here So what I have here is small tablet computer Runs the Android system and we have on this little tablet an application or app as they are called nowadays That we released last year for farmers in the Philippines as a first example It's called nutrient manager rice or sometimes also nutrient manager mobile And it's very simple to use it's all touch screen here as you can see if you don't have an Android Smartphone like this you can also use it through a normal phone and call a toll-free number in the Philippines and all it does It's asking you 12 13 14 questions about your field So the first question that is asking me right now here is Enter the size of the rice to be fertilized in hectares or in lengths and which so I'm selecting hectares because I know that our field is a Quarter of a hectare of point 25 hectares. So I'm entering that We obviously need this to make a proper Calculation next thing is asking me is in what Region we are located here in the Philippines. So I'm choosing Laguna province because that's where the partners is located And I can even choose those partners as a location just to Make it more visible where I am So after I've chosen those things The next questions asking me is what cropping system I have and I have to choose I have pictures here One two or three crops here, and I'm choosing two crops because we're growing usually a dry season crop Then it's asking me what season it is It's the dry season crop. So I have a picture here with the sun and the rice plant. I'm choosing the dry season next And the next question I have to answer is where my water comes from is it from a surface irrigation canal? Is it from a tube well or do I have no irrigation? So here in Erie, we are using to build water that comes actually quite deep out of the earth and Contains quite a bit of nutrients particularly potassium. So I'm choosing to put irrigation But there's some other Questions that I have to answer here. So and I'm just going through this It's also asking you whether I apply any organic fertilizer Now we have chosen not to apply organic fertilizer because we have a very fertile soil here It's a Mars clay soil. It's rich in organic matter has over 2% soil organic carbon It's rich in many other things. So we don't believe that by applying organic fertilizer We could get an extra benefit in terms of yield or profit. And when I'm done, it will spit out hopefully Fertilizer recommendation I can also specify my Personal details. Do I have to give it a name now? No informer So after I've done all this voila comes out a fertilizer recommendation Welcome back. It's now about 12 days after sowing so We're about ready to put the first fertilizer those on so I've calculated the amount already a few days before and This is our first fertilizer. So it's a 14-14-14 so it contains Roughly equal proportions of nitrogen phosphorus and potassium to get the crop going when we need particularly The nitrogen and the phosphorus early at this stage because that stimulates the tillering so I've got About one bag and another bucket food to distribute over my field here So each bucket is roughly 12 kilos. So I have to make sure that it lasts for one walk through the field 100 meters long. So that's going to be my big challenge to make sure that I evenly spread it and don't run out of it halfway through So you can see it's a granular fertilizer So it's pretty easy to handle It doesn't stick so I should be able to Throw it spread it quite well Horrible sign