Tree pruning and fruit bagging are technologies that could improve quality and productivity of mango. There were 332 mango growers and contractors interviewed, grouped as adopters and non-adopters. The influence of socio-economic, physical, technological, and institutional factors on the probability of adopting the technologies was determined using probit analysis. The impacts of the technologies on fruit quality, use of chemicals, pest management cost structure, productivity, net income over pest management cost, and backward linkages were analyzed.
Adoption of tree pruning varied widely across locations. Pruning reduced the volume and cost of chemicals, hence decreased the cost of pest management as indicated by the cost function. Pruning is a yield increasing technology based on Cobb-Douglas production function.
Fruit bagging is widely practiced in Visayas and Mindanao but not in Luzon. Bagging protects fruits from insect pests and reduced the number of sprayings by two times, hence, lower volume and cost of chemical control. But bagging did not significantly reduce the cost of pest management because it is relatively costly. Nonetheless, bagging numerically increased yield resulted to higher proportion of harvest sold to exporters, and higher net revenue above pest management cost.
The reduction in the use of chemicals from pruning and bagging could have long-term effects on man and environment and international trade of mango especially if importers would require maximum residue limit. If practiced predominantly, the danger of environmental pollution and accumulation of the ill-effects of hazardous chemicals on the health of man could be minimized. Thus, continued information dissemination should be done using effective modality of technology transfer.
