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A.M.
Costa Rica
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Published
Monday, May
2, 2016, in Vol. 17, No. 85
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San
José, Costa Rica, Monday,
May 2, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 85
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By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
Parties in opposition to that of President Luis Guillermo Solís took the leadership positions in the legislature for another year. Elected president of the Asamblea Legislative was Antonio Álvarez Desanti of the Partido Liberación Nacional. He was president in 1995, too. He promised an emphasis on reducing governmental expenses. He also said he supports renewing a tax on corporations but not the package of new taxes as proposed by the Solís administration. He was the candidate of what was called the Alianza de Oposición. He suggested that he might seek election next year, too, so that he would have the leadership job for two years. Each May 1 the legislature elects new leadership. The election this year was contentious, and 57 lawmakers needed three rounds of votes to pick Álvarez. He gained 29 votes, but the total will go into the records as 35 because of the way the legislature counts blank ballots. Liberación, Movimiento Libertario and the Partido Renovación Costarricense also gained leadership spots. As president, Álvarez has power to select the measures that will be considered by lawmakers and also to name the chairpersons of the various committees that consider bills. President Solís has pushed hard for a value-added tax and an increase in the upper levels of the income tax. But those plans appear to be dead with the election of the Liberación lawmaker and his team. Candidates whose parties might favor the president’s tax plan were frozen out of leadership roles.
May Day
parade causes no unrest here
By the A.M. Costa
Rica staff
Compared to the rest of the world, the May Day celebration in San José was pretty sedate. French and Turkish police fired tear gas at protesters as tensions erupted in both of those countries, according to wire service reports, which added: Police estimated some 17,000 protesters marched throughout the French capital for a rally riding a wave of anger against planned labor reforms set to come before the French parliament Tuesday. Ten people were arrested. Turkish police and protesters clashed in Istanbul as several dozen people tried to reach the city's Taksim Square, where festivities were banned. In Chile's capital, Santiago, demonstrators held marches days after the country's constitutional court struck down a bill that would give workers more rights to negotiate with employers, one of the key issues of labor reforms that President Michelle Bachelet has been pushing. Some protesters later clashed with riot police, who used tear gas and a water cannon truck to disperse the crowd. In Costa Rica, unions were protesting government plans to reduce some benefits and impose new taxes. But there also was music from a band and marchers who had their own agendas, such as a man who brought a rooster to emphasize his opposition to a bill that would eliminate cock fights. Animals rights organizations support the bill, but some in congress see these activities as Costa Rican culture.
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Monday,
May 2, 2016, Vol. 17, No.
85
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| Judiciary opens an office in Puerto Jiménez on the Osa Peninsula | |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The judiciary has inaugurated its new building in Puerto Jiménez on the Osa peninsula. The location is in southwestern Costa Rica and includes Parque Nacional Corcovado, a major tourist attraction. Prosecutors, public defenders, a creditors court and judges for felonies and misdemeanors are at the new facility. The community is on the east shore of the peninsula. In the past |
those
with judicial business had to travel to Golfito, which
meant a 264-kilometer road trip or a 45-minute boat ride
across the Golfo Dulce, noted the Poder Judicial. Nearly 9,000 persons living in the area will be served by the facility, which is 100 meters from the Escuela Saturnino Cedeño Cedeñ in Puerto Jiménez. Judicial investigators will have an office there, too, the Poder Judicial noted, adding that air conditioning has been installed in the structure. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Monday,
May 2, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 85
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| Government
officials promise to rebuild historic Black Star Line |
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| Editor’s
Note: This article ran in a late evening edition of A.M.
Costa Rica Friday. By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Costa Rican officials already are promising to rebuild The Black Star Line, the iconic, 94-year-old community center in Limón Centro that fire destroyed Friday. A Costa Rican official equated The Black Star Line with the Teatro Nacional, the Basilica de Nuestra Señora de Los Ángeles and the Ruinas de Cartago. The two-story frame structure was the headquarters of the Universal Negro Improvement Association created and directed by Marcus Garvey. The name came from the steamship company Garvey created in 1919. The alarm came in at 5:15 a.m., and when fire fighters arrived minutes later, flames were shooting several hundred feet into the air. The blaze started in the northern part of the building and slowly worked its way to the best-known part on a corner. Fire fighters blamed an electrical problem and said investigators found damaged cables in two places. A chocolate store, a restaurant and a dance studio were in the structure and suffered the same fate. The building had been flagged by the Ministerio de Salud for its electrical system that lacked a ground and because the building did not have fire detectors and alarms. The structure gained the title of patrimonio histórico arquitectónico in 2000, and the Centro de Patrimonio and the building manager, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, were working on a remodeling plan, said the Centro. President Luis Guillermo Solís on a recent visit to Limón spoke of the need to fix up the structure. He said Friday that the country needs to rebuild the Black Star Line identical to the way it was. He also praised Liberty Hall, the second floor meeting and activities area of the building. Sylvie Durán, the minister of Cultura y Juventud, called the damage an irreparable loss that should be felt by the entire national community. William Monge, director of the ministry’s Centro de Investigación y Conservación del Patrimonio Cultural, left for the Caribbean coast when he heard of the fire. He brought a team with him. The Centro said that the first job would be to salvage what was possible from the ashes for future use. Items included historic |
 Centro de
Investigación y Conservación del Patrimonio
Cultural
Fire fighters were able to save the front facade of
The Black Star Line, but the interior is a complete
loss.door locks and other valuable and historic pieces. He was quoted as saying Centro experts would evaluate the structure to see if more damage could be avoided. Some first-floor walls are standing, but most of the structure has been gutted. Fire fighters said they managed to save 385 square meters of the 1,525-square meter building. That’s 4,144 of 16,415 square feet. It was William Monge who equated the structure to the other three Costa Rican historic sites. It would be hard to overestimate the significance of the building to residents of Limón. The queen of the Carnavales de Limón has been crowned there since 1949. There were thousands of civic and private events in the Salón Libertad or Liberty Hall. Garvey, a Jamaican, was in the forefront of the back-to-Africa movement and set up the steamship company partly for that purpose. The company suffered from poor management and only lasted three years. The offices in Costa Rica were in the Limón building. Garvey also was a passionate crusader for black rights, education and economic well-being. The New Orleans style structure with a wrap-around second-floor balcony stood on pilings, which is typical of Caribbean buildings to prevent the entrance of water and small animals and insects. The building suffered heavy damage in the 1991 earthquake, and had been restored. |
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A.M. Costa Rica's
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San José, Costa Rica, Monday, May 2, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 85
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Saudis not involved with 9/11 By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
U.S. intelligence chief John Brennan says there is no evidence indicating that Saudi Arabia gave backing to al-Qaida for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Speculation that the Saudis were involved has some in Congress demanding that 28 pages of a congressional probe into 9/11 be released. Those 28 pages focus on Saudi Arabia and its alleged involvement. Brennan, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, told NBC television's “Meet the Press” Sunday that the information on those pages "was not corroborated, not vetted, and not deemed to be accurate." He said the congressional panels "came out with a very clear judgment that there was no evidence indicating that the Saudi government as an institution, or Saudi officials individually, had provided financial support to al-Qaida." Brennan said those 28 pages were withheld from the public because of the sensitive sources used in the investigation. He spoke a day before the fifth anniversary of a U.S. special forces operation in Pakistan that hunted down and killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. In an interview taped for broadcast Monday, President Barack Obama told CNN television that he ordered the raid when he did because if the United States did not take action, Osama bin Laden might slip away and it might take years before he resurfaced. Bin Laden was the world's most wanted criminal and the leader of al-Qaida, whose terrorist followers flew planes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington, killing 3,000 people. A third hijacked jet also was likely headed for Washington before passengers overwhelmed the terrorists and crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania. Just seconds before bin Laden was shot dead by U.S special forces, Obama said he hopes bin Laden understood as he was being shot that the American people hadn't forgotten the some 3,000 people he killed. Puerto Rico says one died from an infection of zika By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
The first known death from the zika virus on U.S. territory was reported Friday as lawmakers left Washington for a week long recess. Neither house of Congress has approved funding to combat zika, despite increasingly dire warnings from U.S. health officials. It was the death of an elderly man in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, that marked an ominous milestone for the zika virus in the United States. A zika infection usually is not life threatening, but it may spread from a pregnant woman to her child and cause microcephaly and other severe conditions. “This is a public health emergency. That is what our public health experts have told us,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest late last week. The White House has requested nearly $2 billion in emergency funding to target the mosquito that carries zika and promote the development of a vaccine. The Republican-led Congress has yet to act, saying more information is needed. “We should at least have a plan from the administration for how the money is going to be spent,” said Sen. John Cornyn. “There is no plan. It is a blank check.” Democrats note Congress approved larger sums with relative speed to fight ebola and the H1N1 flu. “If they will not give the experts the resources they need to combat zika, what do they propose?” asked Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, a Democrat. “We could ask the zika mosquitos, the zika-carrying mosquitos, we could ask them: 'Do not breed this year.'” “There is a public health menace,” said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. “There is a crisis. We have a responsibility to protect the people from it. Do your job, Congress.” With no new funds on the immediate horizon, the Obama administration is transferring unspent money intended for ebola to the fight against zika. Republicans say the maneuver buys time for a better understanding of how future funds will be spent. “We are going to stay on top of this. We need to find a vaccine,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan. “About $600 million is out the door. We still need answers to questions about where it is going.” The White House insists the transferred ebola money is insufficient and time is of the essence. “We cannot fund the fight against zika a few months at a time,” Earnest said. “In order to effectively, for example, develop and test and manufacture a vaccine that can be used to protect more than 300 million American citizens, that is a multiyear effort that we are talking about. And that is an undertaking that the private sector will have to commit to.” U.S. officials believe the zika-carrying mosquito could spread to at least 30 U.S. states. Devastating birth defects, already reported in Brazil and elsewhere, would likely follow. U.S. cruise ship heads for Cuba from Miami port By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
Another chapter in revived U.S.-Cuban relations opened Sunday with the first commercial passenger cruise ship to sail to Cuba from the U.S. in more than 50 years. The Adonia of Carnival Cruise Lines' Fathom brand with 700 passengers on board left the port of Miami for a planned docking in Havana Monday. "To be part of truly making history and preparing for an even more positive future for everyone is one of the greatest honors any company can have," Carnival chief Arnold Donald said. The Adonia will sail to Havana twice a month. The voyage almost did not happen after Cuban authorities initially banned members of the Cuban diaspora from sailing back to their birthplace, fearing they would try to stir up political dissent. The matter was settled during talks between U.S. and Cuban officials. Regular air service between the U.S. and Cuba is expected to resume later this year. Venezuela’s Maduro orders salaries hiked 30 percent By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
Venezuela's president has ordered a 30 percent increase in the country's minimum wage. The president, Nicolas Maduro, made the announcement as the South American country is experiencing rampant inflation and economic stagnation. The change officially pushes the minimum wage up to just over $1,500 a month, based on the official exchange rate. However, the actual monthly wage is only a tiny fraction of that based on the current black market rate, which largely sets prices of goods for Venezuelans. The pay raises will affect public workers, pensioners and members of the military. "This man's increases are a joke. Inflation is rocketing," said opposition leader Henrique Capriles, adding that inflation was at 20 percent in March. The hike in the minimum wage was effective Sunday, which is May Day. It is also celebrated as International Workers' Day. Leading U.S. circus retires its performing elephants By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
For the very last time, elephants have performed at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, billed as The Greatest Show on Earth. An Asian elephant carrying a performer holding an American flag kicked off Sunday's final elephant performance at an arena in the northeastern city of Providence, Rhode Island. This ends a tradition that has entertained audiences since circuses began in the U.S. two centuries ago, but that in recent years has been challenged by animal rights activists. Six Asian elephants paraded around the ring during the performance, each holding the tail of the one in front of her. The animals will retire to Ringling Brothers' 80-hectare Center for Elephant Conservation in the southern state of Florida. Alana Feld, executive vice president of Feld Entertainment, which owns the circus, says the center has a herd of 40 Asian elephants, the largest in North America. Their final performance was streamed live on Facebook and on the circus' Web site. The Humane Society says more than a dozen circuses in the United States continue to use elephants. But none tour as widely or is as well-known as Ringling Brothers. It also is getting more difficult for circuses to tour with elephants. Dozens of cities have banned the use of bullhooks, which are used to train elephants. Some U.S. states also are considering such legislation. Just like in the classic Disney movie "Dumbo," elephants in the past have been dressed up as people and trained to do a range of tricks: play baseball, ride bicycles, play musical instruments, wear wedding dresses or dress in mourning clothes, said Ronald Tobias, author of the 2013 book "Behemoth: The History of the Elephant in America." In Sunday's final performance, the giant creatures performed such routines as dancing on small platforms, standing on their hind legs and doing headstands. The change at Ringling signifies a shift in Americans' understanding of elephants, Tobias said. People no longer see them as circus performers, "but sentient animals that are capable of a full range of human emotions." Attitudes are shifting about other animals as well. Last month, Sea World announced it would end live orca shows and breeding. Ringling will continue to use other animals, including horses, lions, tigers, dogs and kangaroos, in its shows, Feld said. Tobias said that as attitudes have changed, people are more interested in seeing elephants in a natural habitat such as a sanctuary, rather than in a circus or zoo. Animal rescue organization ships 30 lions to Africa By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
An animal rights group rescued more than 30 lions from abuse at circuses in Perú and Colombia and flew the animals to South Africa Friday in what it called the largest-ever airlift of lions. Animal Defenders International, an American-based non-profit group, said almost all of the animals were abused while in captivity. Some are declawed and have broken teeth. Another is missing an eye. Others, still, have health problems like parasites and disease, according to the organization’s president, Jan Creamer. “It’s truly wonderful that these lions, after a lifetime of suffering and abuse in circuses, are going home to Africa," she said. "All of their lives they haven't had enough food, so they have long-term malnutrition problems." The lions left an airport in Lima, Perú, late Friday night, and were to arrive in Johannesburg, South Africa Saturday, at which point they were to be released into the Emoya Big Cat Sanctuary, according to the Animal Defenders International. At the sanctuary “the lions will enjoy large natural enclosures situated in pristine African bush, complete with drinking pools, platforms and toys,” the organization said in a statement. The lions were set free after Perú and Colombia banned the use of live animals in circuses in 2011 and 2013. The circuses in Colombia gave up nine lions voluntarily, but the rest of the lions in Perú were rescued only after police launched raids to free them. In recent months, the lions have spent their days in cages in a refuge north of Lima, where they have been well fed and taken care of, Ms. Creamer said. The trip cost about $10,000 for each of the lions, the organization said, but for Ms. Creamer, the cost was justified. “These lions have endured hell on Earth,” she said. “Now they are heading home to paradise.” Cruz hard at work to win June 7 primary in California By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
Republican presidential candidate Rafael “Ted” Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, says the California primary election June 7, which usually comes too late to have an impact, will this year decide his party’s nominee. Cruz, who is trailing businessman Donald Trump in the state-by-state nominating contest, told delegates to the California Republican Convention Saturday that the campaign would be a battle on the ground, district by district by district. California Republicans will send 172 pledged delegates to the national convention in July, the most of any state. The winning candidate needs 1,237 delegates to clinch the nomination. Cruz addressed California Republican leaders just hours before a speech by his announced running mate, Carly Fiorina, a former executive in the state’s high-tech center of Silicon Valley. Republican front-runner Donald Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who is running a distant third, spoke Friday. Convention attendee Eric Dillinger, a Cruz supporter, said this election is “about protecting our constitutional rights, lower taxes, helping try to get rid of the debt and a strong defense.” He said he agrees with Cruz on every major issue. Trump supporter Kris Kvarnstrom worries about Cruz’s conservative stand on abortion and said a President Cruz would replace retiring justices of the U.S. Supreme Court with judicial nominees that reflect his views. They could stop abortions for the next 50 years, she said, taking the choice out of the hands of women. She said she finds Trump less ideological. A Gallup Poll April 1 found that 70 percent of American women have an unfavorable view of Trump, but Ms. Kvarnstrom is not one of them. “I feel he is very good for women because he empowers them to be all they can be,” she said of Trump. “I like that.” Trent Carlson, a student member of the Young Republicans group at Santa Clara University, is also wary of Cruz’s conservative positions on social issues such as abortion and gay rights. “I really do support John Kasich,” he said, “but at the same time, I do like quite a lot of what Donald Trump has to say. He has really shaken up the party, and if he won the primary, I would most certainly back him.” Julian Del Real-Calleros of Los Angeles is sticking with a candidate who trails far behind Trump and Cruz in the race. “People ask me, 'Why do you support Kasich?' ” Del Real-Calleros said. “Mathematically, he will not win the nomination. And for me, it doesn’t matter. . . . I’m supporting the guy who I believe is the perfect next president.” Del Real-Calleros, whose parents were born in México, said Kasich steers clear of divisive issues such as immigration and focuses on the economy, jobs and national security, issues on which most Republicans agree. Trump has been the target of Hispanic groups who question his plan to build a fence along the U.S.-México border to stop illegal immigration. Hundreds of protesters blocked the hotel where Trump spoke Friday, and others tangled with police at a Trump rally Thursday near Los Angeles. The Cruz campaign says it has 41,000 volunteers ready to knock on doors and make phone calls to voters in California. Trump is relying on the momentum from his five-state sweep in primaries on Tuesday in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. Trump has secured nearly 1,000 of the 1,237 pledged delegates needed for the party’s nomination, according to an Associated Press delegate count. Cruz has fewer than 600 but could gain enough in coming races to derail a Trump sweep in a contested convention. California’s 172 delegates will be awarded to candidates by congressional district, regardless of who wins the statewide vote. The candidates will next face off Tuesday in Indiana, a state with 57 delegates at stake, which Cruz also calls critical to his effort to stop Trump. Trump appears to fatten lead in crucial Indiana contest By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
A new U.S. political survey signaled Sunday that Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, is surging ahead in the crucial Midwestern state of Indiana, where party voters are holding the next nominating contest Tuesday. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll showed Trump with 49 percent support among Republicans in the state, compared to 34 percent for Sen. Rafael “Ted” Cruz of Texas, a conservative firebrand, and 13 percent for John Kasich, who governs the neighboring state of Ohio. U.S. political analysts view the contest in Indiana, a politically conservative state with vast expanses of farmland and industrial centers, as possibly the last chance for Cruz or Kasich to stop Trump, a billionaire, from approaching the Republican nomination. Trump, a one-time television reality show host who has never held elective office, already holds a substantial lead over his challengers in the race to win a majority of delegates to July's Republican national convention where the party's nominee to run in November's national election will be picked. Trump scored convincing wins in the last six state nominating contests, in his home state of New York and five nearby states in the northeastern U.S. He cannot clinch the nomination with a win in Indiana, but it would push him closer to securing it, with just nine states yet to vote in the next five weeks after Indiana, and, more importantly, continued momentum. "If we win Indiana, it's over," Trump said this week as he campaigned in the state. Cruz acknowledged that he needs to halt Trump's march to the nomination, saying, "We're at the edge of a cliff and staring down." Cruz, who delights in sparring with Democratic and Republican leaders alike in the halls of Congress in Washington, appeared on Sunday's news talk television shows to try to make the case that Trump and the leading Democratic contender, former U.S. secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are both Washington insiders who would not be able to alter the capital's fractious political divide. Cruz called them both New York liberals. Cruz described Trump and Clinton "flip sides of the same coin. Behind the Donald Trump mask is Hillary Clinton," claiming that he supports many of the same policies she does. Trump rebuffed the claim, saying, "Yes, I'm a conservative. But at this point, who cares? We've got to straighten out this country." Cruz predicted that Mrs. Clinton would easily defeat Trump in a hypothetical match-up in the November election, but declined to disavow support for him if he wins the Republican nomination. Mrs. Clinton, the country's top diplomat from 2009 to 2013, is trying to become the country's first female president. She is significantly ahead of her sole challenger, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, in the contest for the Democratic nomination, but has yet to clinch a majority of the delegates to the party's July national convention. The NBC poll showed her with a 50-46 percent edge over Sanders in Indiana ahead of the Democratic primary there. Mrs. Clinton, the wife of former President Bill Clinton, told CNN she does not consider herself to be the party's presumptive nominee yet, but said she is "on the path" to claiming it. The winner of the November election will succeed President Barack Obama when he leaves office in January. Obama tries out a new career as a standup comedian By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
U.S. President Barack Obama was the main attraction as journalists, politicians and celebrities attended the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner Saturday night in Washington. The dinner and speeches were covered by CNN as major news with commentators in the studio expressing opinions. It was a chance for Obama to poke fun one last time at himself as well as his friends, enemies, the media and Congress. The president described himself as "gray, grizzled ... just counting down the days to my death panel." Critics of his program for universal health care, Obamacare, had wrongly predicted death panels would decide the fate of seriously ill patients. In a reference to the upcoming presidential election, Obama said, "Next year at this time someone else will be standing here in this very spot, and it's anyone's guess who she will be." Of course, Democrat Hillary Clinton is the only woman in the race. In another reference to Mrs. Clinton, who has reportedly made millions of dollars from speeches to various high-powered businesses, Obama said, "If this material goes well, I'm going to use it at Goldman Sachs next year." The notoriously thin-skinned Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate who leads in delegate counts so far, did not attend the dinner. Trump was in attendance last year, but was reportedly not amused by the jokes the president directed at him. Obama said this year, "They say Donald lacks the foreign policy experience to be president. But in fairness, he has spent years meeting with leaders from around the world: Miss Sweden, Miss Argentina, Miss Azerbaijan." The president was referencing Trump's role as a co-owner of the Miss Universe contest. Obama ended his remarks with "Obama, out," and then deliberately dropped his microphone, a gesture that has come to symbolize someone who is indisputably victorious. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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contents
of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río
Colorado S.A. 2016 and may not be reproduced anywhere
without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
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| A.M. Costa Rica sixth news page |
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San José, Costa Rica, Monday, May 2, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 85
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Those citrus trees need room to
breathe We have an orchard. Not just a lemon or an orange here and there, an orchard of about 50 trees. When we arrived in 2012, the previous owner had planted about 25 trees in soil 6 inches deep and underlain by clay. And they were three feet apart. She planted lemon trees a foot from the path down the hill. Lemon trees
Needless to say, I now have a 30- by 50-foot orchard. The soil drains very well. And those stunted clay-dwelling trees? They now have room to grow. Standard-sized trees require 12 to 25 feet between trunks while dwarfs need only 6 to 10 feet. It does vary: Standard orange 20 feet, standard grapefruit, 25 feet. Plant them any closer and you lose fruit production due to mutual shading which decreases photosynthesis. Close planting also causes the roots to entangle and compete for scarce nutrients. Nutrient competition and depletion causes yellowing and wilting of leaves and lowered fruit production. If you have closely planted fruit trees, as we did when we arrived, they should be transplanted before the roots entangle, which depends on how close they are. Some of ours were 2 years old and well entangled. They have not done as well after transplanting. Others, further apart, are doing very well. We are fortunate that the pond was downhill out of the wind, in full sun and deep soil as citrus love a sunny windless environment. Here’s what we didn’t know. Citrus, especially in conditions where there is a lot of rain, take more fertilizing that we realized. From February to October, a mature tree (over 5 years old) takes one pound of fertilizer for every year of life! That is a lot of fertilizer. We use a 10-10-10 pelleted fertilizer on those mature trees every three months in that growing season. That’s 180 pounds x 3 or 540 pounds. And that’s just for the grouped trees. We have others scattered around the property that are bigger and older. call it 1,000 pounds of fertilizer a year. Wow. Here is the formula if you are just starting your trees. Time period is February through October: first-year trees, ½ pound every 6 weeks. Second-year trees, 1 pound every 7 weeks. Third-year trees, 2 pounds every 9 weeks. Fourth-year trees, 3 pounds every 12 weeks. At year 5, trees are considered mature and need 5 pounds of fertilizer per tree 3 times in the growing season. After that, add 1 pound per year of age of tree (10 year old tree gets 10 pounds). And how do you apply all this fertilizer? Fertilize from the edge of the canopy (the “drip line”) not at the trunk since the feeder roots are found there. Fertilize in a band as wide as the age of the tree: a 5-year old tree gets a band 5 feet wide. I am still struggling with 1,000 pounds of pelleted fertilizer. Maybe I could just get my oranges in the store? Nah.  Plant of the Week If you would like to suggest a topic for this column, simply send a letter to the editor. And, for more garden tips, visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/ Arenal-Gardeners/413220712106845. |
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| From Page 7: Gold and crude surge due to weaker dollar By the A.M. Costa Rica
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Markets closed a very busy week of earnings and news, highlighted by six mergers and acquisitions transactions on Thursday, the Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan, weak GDP and disappointing quarterly results from iPhone maker, Apple. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average lost April gains and the NASDAQ was down for seven consecutive sessions. The yen had its best week since 2008, which, in turn, hit stocks and the U.S. dollar Thursday as the Bank of Japan held monetary policy steady rather than adding additional stimulus. This led traders to believe that perhaps the Bank of Japan might be finished adding fresh stimulus to the economy. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged, and while the April communique was essentially a copy-and-paste from March, the Fed eliminated the term global risk, which led investors to speculate that the Fed is adopting a more hawkish posture. Sector rotation remains a dominant theme as investors continued to move out of the healthcare and technology sectors and into energy, materials and utilities. In the commodity complex, gold and crude oil surged to 2016 highs. Brent crude saw its biggest monthly rise in seven years on Friday as the dollar fell, and U.S. production slowed down. Because of the rebound in commodities, Russia was the best performing market in April due to its commodity dependency. |
