Current trends in pepper cultivation, fertilizers, and wide-scale applications of broad-spectrum organophosphate pesticides could result in a degrading ecological environment besides shortening the lifespan of pepper vines [1].
In Malaysia, the costs of buying compound inorganic fertilizers for pepper vines of different maturity stage are shown in Table 1.
Gomez and I found our way to an organic spice garden in Thekkady where Thomas Puttampurakkal, a retired Kerala police officer in his 80s, tends to pepper vines that twist around jackfruit and nutmeg trees growing in what seems to be an agricultural system with no real pattern or structure.
We are surrounded by Arabica, Robusta and Cardamom plantations, interspersed with pepper vines on silver-oak.
The misty surroundings, the slight nip in the air, the spice plantations, the colourful plants and flowers and the dense tropical trees all around, waterfalls, pepper vines wrapped seductively around giant trees...