1. Ramon Cabanos Barba was a Filipino inventor and horticulturist best known for inventing a way to induce more flowers in mango trees using ethrel and potassium nitrate.
10 Facts About Ramon Barba
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The son of Juan Madamba Ramon Barba and Lourdes Cabanos of San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte, Ramon Barba was born on August 31,1939, the youngest of four siblings.
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Ramon Barba then took up a Bachelor of Science course in agriculture at the University of the Philippines Los Banos, majoring in Agronomy and Fruit Production, eventually graduating in 1958.
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Ramon Barba received a scholarship from the University of Georgia where he began conducting experiments on inducing the flowering of plants using gibberellic acid and potassium nitrate as a fertilizer.
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Ramon Barba graduated with distinction with a Master of Science in Horticulture from the university in 1962.
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Ramon Barba then took up a PhD course in plant physiology, specializing in Tropical Fruits and Tissue Culture from the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, graduating in 1967.
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Ramon Barba conducted experiments with help from his friends Jose and Rita Quimson of Quimara Farms in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan.
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Ramon Barba's study, titled Induction of Flowering of the Mango by Chemical Spray was named best paper by the Crop Science Society of the Philippines in 1974.
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Ramon Barba was recognized as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men in Agriculture that same year.
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In 2001, Ramon Barba cautioned fruit farmers that "too much flower inducer spraying bad for mangoes".