Updates, Collecting and More!!

Greetings Project Bona Fide Friends and Supporters,

One important development in communications in Nicaragua as of a week or so ago. If you are calling Nicaragua for whatever reason (hopefully to send us love) you must now dial an '8' before the 7 digit mobile number and a '2' before whichever land line number you call. Just so you know.

Since my last post I have traveled down to Florida to spend time with my family. In my 4 days here I have visited 3 botanical institutions: The Fairchild Botanical Garden, The Montgomery Botanical Garden, and The Fruit and Spice Park of Homestead FL. I have been collecting plant material for ex-situ conservation and newcrops/food systems development for Bona Fide at 2 of these sites for over half a decade. My visit to the Montgomery Botanical Garden (http://www.montgomerybotanical.org) was my first. The MBG is invite only, it is a former estate which is now a NGO dedicated in great part to the preservation of palms and cycads. they have the largest collection of cycads in the entire world, a huge part of the worlds genetics for cycads as well as the safeguards for the continuance of these species is being caried out by MBG and its allies. I was fortunate enough to spend a half day with the Manager of Collections, Chad Husby PHD. Chad was extremely gracious and I thank him wholeheartedly for his time and energy. This visit has begun what we hope is a long collaboration with MBG and other allied institutions. This newfound affiliation is a great 'leg up' for Bona Fide in terms of our work in ex-situ conservation and Newcrops development.

The evolving Bona Fide website. The BF website has grown in the last few weeks and we thank Matthew Homeijer, our web ninja wizard for his time and creative energy to make this happen. Mat is a busy man working in the big city, NYC. He is also a father of a very rambunctious 2 year old, Silas. We have named Silas our 'manager' for website updates, his picture is featured this week. Usually we do the updates while he naps.

Other photos features: the yummy looking fruit is a Pakistani Mulberry, a cultivar of Morus nigra that can have fruits up to 4" long. They taste amazing. Not really a lowland tropical fruit but for the tropics at elevation, the sub tropics and other climates they are incredible. Traditionally in Pakistan and Afghanistan they were dried for eating whilst traveling. The photo of seed drying shows the spoils from collecting in the last 3 days. The aerial shot is a view of MBG and its grounds which is 120 acres.

Hope everyone is well, thanks for your support,

Chris Shanks

Community Center Fence, RAIN, and thanks.

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

I write you from a balmy New York city, having sated myself on temperate spring flowering displays in both the Brookyln botanical garden and the NYBG in the Bronx. Both amazing, two great days full of trees and learning. I have spent the last 2 weeks on the east coast seeing family, meeting with Michael Judd our co-director and strategically planning BF's direction for the rest of the year and the coming year. Bona Fide's website has some new faces, with a brand new 'Escuela de Campo' page and updated FAQ pages plus a new FAQ page and NEW intern pages. Please check them out. Our web NINJA master, Mat Homeijer has been busting his butt between a full time job, childcare, life, and helping BF. THANKS MAT!!

Now a big thanks also to The University of Vermont's Service Learning Program or CUPS for the GRANT we received to fund and maintain a native timber coppice system for polewood and firewood production. This is a first step of many of Bona Fide's foray intoo thr grant world and larger co-operation with other organizations. Many thanks to Michael Blazewicz for co-authoring the grant with yours truly. THANKS MIKE!

RAIN. Yes RAIN. It is the driest period of the dry season yet we received signifcant showers last week for durations of one half hour or more. This coming wet season could be very interesting. We shall see.

The Community fence project at our community center is slowly shaping up with Vienel, an assistant mason from Chris' team leading a group of community volunteers in erecting the fence. Vienel has been working for over 6 weeks on forming and curing the nearly 60 (8 foot) concrete posts with various community supporters, now we are putting them in the ground
. We hope to have the fencing in in a few weeks and to begin planting the garden, shade trees for the playground and medicinal plants for the community when the rain becomes steady in about 3 weeks.

Best to all and thanks for your support,

Chris Shanks
Co-Director, Project Bona Fide

Costa COllecting, new OVEN and more!!!

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

I salute you all from the good old US of A, here in the great Garden State of New Jersey. Spring has sprung here and tree are budding out, willows have leaves, and flowers are beginning to abound and are in full bloom in NYC and other heat island affected sites in this zone. I just saw my twin nephews a few days ago, it certainly put me in a daze. Children surely are one of the best reasons to plant trees and cultivate abundance.

Well now for some reporting on BF doings, of which there are many. BF agro-forestry research and trials efforts were bolstered in this past week with my quick trip to Costa Rica to find the elusive pili nut (Canarium ovatum and communis) These species are only found in one botanical garden in all of Nicaragua and Costa Rica to the best of my knowledge and basing my calculations of ripeness and seed availability from the January CR trip I was correct and my travels yielded close to 60 viable seeds. This high fat and protein nut was once tested side by side by USDA with the Macadamia nut for commercial suitability. Guess who won? This nut though is grown and sold on a commercial scale in South East Asia. We have high hopes here for its success on a home/community scale at the very least. Orchard trials should begin in July-August of 2009.

Well wind farms. Cool. Local wind farms, even cooler. Amayo SA wind project, a collaborative project between US and Canadian investors along with Nicaraguan backers, stalled for over 2 years by antiquated MARENA regulations, but persistence pays off, a over 40 mega watt project that will provide thousands of homes with green juice as well as:

• Located in one of the best wind resources in the North American continent.
• Amayo will reduce 120,000 tonnes of carbon emissions each year.
• Arctas secured $72 million in project finance debt from regional development bank.
• Erection complete and will be fully commissioned by March 2009.
• When commissioned, plant will be nearly twice as large as next largest wind project in Central America or the Caribbean.
• With 2.1MW per unit turbines, Amayo has only MW-class turbines currently installed in region.

Cool. Beautiful. Independence rides the wind. Word. Palabra.

The new BF oven has been fired and it is SUPER!!!. Thanks to Darif, Kim, Dee, Martha, David, Ryan and everyone else for their efforts. Special big thanks to David Ortiz and Martha, our tireless insulating cob layer cobbers!!!

Well a few other references, the rack of greenish red fruit is a full mature rack of pejibaje fruit (Bactris gasipaes) a prominent species fo interest for BF for trials, BF has already fruited this species and is making selections, this is an off season rack that was purchased at a market in CR for a song, halved and had its seed removed, this will provide valuable genetics for future projects.

The killer orange flower is Brownea macrophylla from the legume family, a beautiful flower found on our more serious collecting mission. Enjoy.

Last but not least. I am not sure who this guy is. Definitely a hippie!!!

Well its me, circa 4 years ago, collecting durian in flavour anticipation in Vancouver, Canada.

Durian is being trialed on the farm for the future alongside greywater trials. If you do not know why do some homework on durian you all.

Thanks for everyone's attention.

Best,

Chris Shanks

Co Director, Project Bona Fide

Las Cuchillas clothing and BASEBALL GEAR intercambio!!

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,

Chris here reporting from the isla in the midst of the 'Dry' season. It rained last night, now when I say this I do not mean a few drops or a tease, I mean a true 25 minute plus rain with 1" of soil penetration, in my 7 years here this has been the weirdest and most extaño dry season or verano EVER, and seems to me quite strange for the elders i have spoke to as well about this, the lake is finally down enough for fishing and local fisherfolk are out once again plying their trade.

Well, here is to Sam, Ryan, Darif and Sally from BF and the whole West Van crew from West Vancouver Canada that brought baseball equipment and clothing to the isla. The BF crew hauled the lot of that gear up to Las Cuchillas, a small cloud forest community of 300 hardy folks living 300 plus meters up on the volcano w/o electricity. There was a baseball gear and clothing exchange and BF received eggs, coconuts, cut pictures from kids as well as some songs, poems and BIG THANKS. Anf BIG THANKS TO ALL who participated.

As for this weeks shameless fruit shot, we have what I believe to be Annona reticulata or custard apple or anon as it is know here, a tasty relative of the sugar apple and soursop or guanabana as it is known here.

As for the other shots we a a new post sleeve/post base interface shot as a advance in Bona Fide appropriate technology, essentially what we have is a moat that keeps termites from crawling up the post, this allows us to use ast growing termite susceptible soft woods for building instead of slow growing hardwoods, ongoing testing is a must as is a small drip system that will fill each moat all at once. We gotta a new oven, thanks to David Ortiz our master builder plus Tom Watts Nielsen, Darif, and many others who contributed in brick carrying and mud mixing, THANKS!!!!! The new oven should do 4-5 pizzas at once and up to 15 loaves of bread. Bona Fide!!! Well the last shot is a shameless promo of my new house going up, I wanted to share the afternoon light on my porch as we get ready to put tile on the roof, thanks to my builders: David, Norman, Loco, Vienel, and everyone else helping me make my home here.

Best to all,

Chris Shanks
Co-Director, Project Bona Fide
Chris@projectbonafide.com

Painted playground, post madness, OAKS!

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,


Chris here saying a big 'Hello' to all. The last week or so since my previous posting has been full of a lot of good work and a lot of comings and goings. The farm has been very full with a lot of eager and helpful volunteers and we are happy to have them.

In the series of fotos featured this week we share (finally sorry all) a bunch of images of the 'West Vancouver High school' or West Van as they are known that has come to visit and support community projects in Balgüe for five years. In the last two years these intrepid students and their group leader, Greg Cormier have been very supportive in the development of the the community center the Bona Fide has in our local town. This year the group focused on helping us to begin our Pueboltel homestay program, raised money to build a VERY STURDY fence around the community center to discourage livestock from destroying all plants planted as well as support our Cafe Infantil and of course paint our new playground all sorts of cool colors with lots of local kids helping a long the way. Local kids and West Van students found out quickly how sticky oil based enamel really is. Nice handprints everyone!! As for the following fotos apart from our super cute kidz painting montage we have a pink flower and fuzzy looking fruit that is of all things, PEACH, yes real peach 'Prunus persica' I saw it at about 5500' (1600 meters) in Miraflor reserve in the cloud forests of Northern Nicaragua, ditto for the oaks leaves shown (1 of 4-5 species, true Quercus) And of course the mango featured is a early bearing variety that BF has identified as a under utilized local species with a lot of promise. Plant it up!!
Next week we will despedir some long time staff and show some PIZZA fotos of our new oven.

Best to all,

Chris Shanks
Co-director, Project Bona Fide

BLog update a long time coming...

Greetings Bona Fide friends and supporters,



We are a bit behind on the blog these days due to high winds. High winds and waving trees contribute to spotty internet connections and loss of connections equals inability to update the blog. Nevertheless we will persist. Much is happening here on the farm, late February saw the first visit of my mother, Candace Shanks who has been a contributor to BF’s work via supporting fundraising efforts, awareness, organizing, and not the least hauling dozens of bilingual children’s books to the Balgue’s library at the community center, YEAH MOM!!!



This week’s features are Sapotaceae family DIVERSITY. The three exotic looking fruits in the posted fotos are 3 botanically distinct pecies. Trick is that only 2 of them seem to be known to general science and fruit species diversity. Seems that we may have a distinct sub species of Pouteria zapota or perhaps a different species occurring in the Masatepe region of Nicaragua not far from the colonial town of Granada. Go DIVERSITY!!!



We are all TIED UP here, that is in the ‘love shack’ that is to say that volunteers and interns have been working diligently on the new staff housing facility lovingly dubbed the ‘Love Shack’ as it is being built by our resident English couple, Tom and Eira. This building is built with bamboo from the farm, all the wood is from the farm and the thatch that will make up the roof was locally obtained. It is going to be a beautiful building. Congrats to all who helped with this effort of harvesting, drying, splitting, and cutting up a lot of bamboo PLUS tying all these bamboo members together with thousands of feet of tarred twine. NICE WORK. Pictured in the ‘Da shack’ is Shane and Jonah and pictured sawing is Sally, our new community support intern.



The last two fotos illustrate BF agricultural research and food systems development efforts. The curiously looking tomato like fruit is related to tomato but is actually a botanically distinct species. In efforts to grow tomatoes organically in a challenging climate and soil that seems especially hostile to the nightshade family save hot peppers (they are native here!!) we have been conducting trials of 8 varieties of tropically adapted tomatoes as well as 3 botanically distinct species. So far so good, we think we will have made some selections in the next month. Last but not least is the featured foto of one of our dozens of cinnamon trees that flower this time of year. Flowers bring seeds and seeds bring sharing of this valuable spice for both food and medicine.



Cheers to all.



Best to all,



Chris Shanks

Co-Director Project Bona Fide

Chris@projectbonafide.com