Only recently have I gotten a colleague other than my supervisor. He is a native Honduran who was adopted by an American missionary couple when he was young. Recently he has moved back to Honduras. He started out just translating for us, but now he helps me on my trial plots. Our relationship is based on mutual friendship. He knows more about Honduran culture and even more about corn than I do. I am constantly learning about traditional farming from him, and I try to teach him the scientific approaches I am taking to growing corn in return. The first question he asked me was how many corn seeds I was planting together, three for four. I replied one.
This week I started planting my corn plots! Right now, I have 18 plots measured out but only 11 planted. I also conducted an interview with an agronomist this weekend. I asked him questions about local corn production. The topics ranged from planting date, fertilizer, weeds, insects, and diseases. Of course the answers were his opinions, but it was information I could not find on my own. I also harvested (and ate) some corn that was planted back in May.
The only agronomic problem I can think of is the tiller we were going to use could not be fixed here in Gracias. We had to end up buying a weed eater to get rid of the weeds and then purchase a hand planter to plant the corn.
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