Ryoutan Nichinichi Shinbun published the news of Nanryo junior high school students cultivating bitter gourd plants as green curtains, where the sugar palm fiber net made by the natural fiber research group was used as the net trellis.

Cultivating Bitter Gourd using Sugar Palm Fiber Net-
Students of Nanryo Junior High School are making the Green Curtain

The Fukuchiyama Environmental Council (representative: Mr. Tetsuya Takura) has recently held a “Global Warming Countermeasures and Green Curtain Planting Class” for third-year students at Nanryo Junior High School in Minamioka-cho, Fukuchiyama City, Kyoto Prefecture. With the guidance of Ms. Manami Tsuchida of Espec Midori School, the students worked on making green curtains using bitter gourd.

It is hoped the younger generation will learn the specific measures to prevent global warming and increase their willingness to take action. There was also a lecture by the President, Mr. Hiroki Kihara, of Tantan Energy Co., Ltd., a company that handles electricity derived from renewable energy.

A total of 175 people from 5 classes gathered and listened to the lectures, and planted the bitter gourd. Ms. Tsuchida explained that the “green curtain” that uses climbing plants blocks the sunlight. She said, “The place with the curtain is about 7 degrees cooler than the surroundings,” and also taught the students requirements such as watering the bitter gourd plants regularly both in the morning and evening, applying fertilizer for 10 days, and pinching the plants.

After listening to Ms. Tsuchida’s explanation, the students were divided into 3 or 4 groups to put soil in the polystyrene foam boxes and plant the bitter gourd seedlings. Koharu Tsuchida smiled and said, “I was surprised to find that the temperature drops very much just by planting bitter gourd.” I want to make a thick and cool curtain. ”

The original news is published by Ryoutan Nichinichi Shinbun at the following URL
https://www.ryoutan.co.jp/articles/2022/07/93516/