Agustín's nematodes

Volunteer Kate Cimini interviewed a student researcher last month.

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Hebert Augustín Bracamonte is 44 years old. He wears his age and experience well, scattered over his face with a handful of freckles. He has bright black eyes that absolutely shine at the person he’s speaking to, and wears his hair a little longer than ear length, brushed back from his face. Augustín is a student at the college, finishing his ninth semester with his thesis about parasitic nematodes found on coffee plants. Augustín’s graduation from college has been a long time coming and he’s both relieved and proud. And he has taken a rather circuitous route to the place he is today.

Augustín originally entered into college as a traditionally-aged student of Agronomy, but when his younger brother decided to study medicine Augustín’s father told him that he would no longer be able to support Augustín in his university since it would be more lucrative to have a doctor in the family. Augustín explains all this very calmly, and adds that he then began various jobs, the last of which was working in the coffee plant in the nearby community of San Cristóbal. As he tells it, Augustín was forever talking to the manager of the coffee plant about ideas he had for the coffee and asking questions that he wanted answered. Augustín’s curiosity brought him to the attention of Sister Damon.

According to Augustín, Sister Damon approached him at work one day and asked him why he wasn’t considering entering the college. She brushed aside all his concerns; he was not too old, he would be accepted by the younger students, he didn’t need much money, he should to return to school. Augustín decided to take her up on the offer.

His research with nematodes is a continuation of a thesis of a previous student, Hector Hugo Espejo, who identified this parasite. These nematodes destroy the coffee by eating through the primary roots, destroying the plant’s nutrition-gathering system. Augustín hopes to eliminate these nematodes with plant extracts that are toxic to this pest. Funds from conBolivia are helping make this fieldwork possible. With this research, Augustín can start to solve a problem that greatly reduces coffee production in this region of the country, where coffee production is a principal crop.

Flies and Beetles

Two years ago, collaborators from Brigham Young University, Drs. Val Anderson, Robert Johnson and Shawn Clark, proposed a joint project with the college. The project looked at whether insects from intact cloud forest provide any benefits to farmers, like pest-eating insects, or pollinators. Oscar Claros answered the question of pollinators from the bee family and their relation between forest and crop areas last month with his project.

Today, Eddy Alarcón answered the question of whether the forest served as a home for some crop pest-eating insects, carabid beetles and syrphid flies. And the answer was... sometimes.


Photo: Eddy sets a Malaise trap for flying insects

Carabid beetles of the same species, terrestrial for the most part, were generally not found in both crop areas and forest. Although they do eat a large variety of prey, they are probably more specialized in terms of where they complete their life cycle.

Syrphid flies, on the other hand, are generally much more mobile, and their search for prey covers a larger area, with species that move between forest to crop areas.


Photo: A syrphid fly from the study area.

Eddy also discovered that the insecticides used for squash production at one of the sites, San Juan de la Miel, had a major impact on the composition of syrphid fly population.

All present spoke of the high quality of this student's work, and it showed in his defence grade: 96%, distinguished with honors. This is a first this year, and we are very proud of this young man.

This project received much support from our friends at BYU, from the Benson Agriculture and Food Institute, and the Bootcamp (recently funded by a generous anonymous donor -- thank you!). As usual, our new graduate was made possible by a team of dedicated people working together. And we are grateful for that.

Racacha, the Andean root

The community of San Juan de la Miel,across the valley from Carmen Pampa, is famous in La Paz for the production of racacha (Arracacia xanthorrhiza). It is a yellow, starchy, turnip-like root virtually unknown in the United States, but produced widely in South America. (It is especially delicious with peanut sauce and dried llama meat called charque, a dish sometimes called the typical dish of Coroico, Plato Coroiqueño).

Today Gerónimo Álvarez became the very last student from the first class of agronomy students in the college to graduate. His study was about the right amount of chicken manure fertilizer for racacha, a study he did in his home community, San Juan de la Miel.


Photo: Gerónimo signs a copy of his thesis before taking the agronomy's vow.

He told me today that he got an offer to head up the office of a micro-loan bank in Chulumani! We are really proud of this new graduate who complete's our set of successes, the whole graduating class of 1994.


Photo: Gerónimo and fellow San Juan de la Miel community member Milthon Calle.