CIMMYT

I had a great day yesterday at CIMMYT; I went on a few tours and established a lot of new contacts both in El Batan and Nicaragua.  Carolina Saint Pierre was my host while I was there, and she was absolutely amazing.  I met with the socioeconomics department, and they gave me a lot of information on creating a questionnaire for the sort of project I will be doing with the Miskito people.
The guy in charge of the conservation program in El Batan gave me a hand planter which should be extremely helpful in furthering the development of the agriculture in Batana, the site where I will be spending a lot of my time working while I am in Nicaragua.  It does not require tillage, and turns planting and fertilizing into an easy one step process.  One issue is that crop residue must be left on the field after harvest in order for this system to work, and I do no think I will be in Nicaragua when the time comes for that step of the program (The crop residue is useful as a fodder for cattle as well, so it may be difficult to convince the people to leave it on the field).  Hopefully everything goes smoothly in the next couple of weeks, if so I should be able to plant a few trial crops in multiple locations throughout the North Eastern coast of Nicaragua.
I have contact information for CIMMYT/CIAT people in Nicaragua, and if I can coordinate it correctly, I should be able to get some good quality corn and bean seed; a two crop rotation will probably be the easiest and most successful in the situation that I am going to encounter.  If I could just find a way to access fertilizer for a reasonable price, everything might just fall into place (as long as the soil is halfway decent).

Greetings from the Houston airport,

Austin