OCAMPO, Camarines Sur—Leonardo Libreja, 34, defied beliefs when he successfully propagated strawberry here in the lowland of this town thriving in hot climate and bearing fruits sweeter than those found in the Mountain Province.
Commonly, it has always been a belief here that plants thriving in cold climate like strawberry, apple, and tangerine will not thrive in tropical clime like here in this town northeast of Naga City.
With a green thumb and a passion for farming, the agribusiness-graduate Libreja unlocked the secrets of raising strawberry in the yard through experimentation.
Using Hawaiian variety of strawberry that he had brought here after his training in farming at the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources at University of Hawaii Minoa from 2003-2005, it took him seven years to perfect acclimatization of the breed that he is now starting to mass produce.
Librejo explained that acclimatization is the process by which the plant is gradually made to adjust with the weather until it becomes used to it.
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