Hi Bro,

thanks for visiting the blog. soon i will add another blog on soursop. Buddha say, "Sharing Wisdom is Good Merit". Thus i hope to share what i learnt from other farmers also. If you have questions do ask...would try to answer as much as possible...

will read about the jackfruit problems they are encountering and see if any ideas come up. Do you have any specific problems that your friends are facing apart from the file attached ?

Good question on why i chose J33 of all.

Reason No. 1

This clone fetches are very good price here in Mantin. For Clone Yap and Clone Sime Darby, Grade A fruits are only RM 1.30-1.50 per kg MAX. Where as J33 aka Nangka Madu aka Honey Jackfruit fetches are price of RM 1.70 - 2.00 per kg for Grade A fruits. Thus 1st reason is economic.


Reason No. 2

From the data i surveyed, i found that J33 is difficult to cultivate. Why i say so, i had talked to a lot of J33 farmers they are at wits end on how to make J33 fruit all year round and also hitting 20kg and above (more for exports reasons). Thus alot of older generations that are farming Clone Yap & Sime Darby in Mantin are very reluctant to change over because these 2 clones fruit all year round.

I want to help the farmers in Mantin if they allow me to, so i can help them improve yield and make a good living. I would also like
change farmer's mentality that this is a poor man's job and low level profession. 2nd Reason is a challenge for myself and vision to help fellow farmers. (inspired by Buddha)


Reason No. 3

And as i want to progress into Fruit Farm Advisory i chose J33 for its difficulty to cultivate and if i am able to make J33 fruit all year round and also hitting 20kg and above then i can make ends meet. Thus that's the 3rd reason (Grow myself & $$$)

Cost of plantets that i bought are RM 5.00 each. Irrigation is built so i depend less on foreign workers and weather for my trees. I strongly suggest you slowly have irrigation for your place if permitted. Great benefits for your plants and yourself.

I think i am one of the crazy few that would love dry spells throughout the year because with irrigation you dont have to depend on weather for water. If dry spell happens then you are king because most fruit trees will drop fruits due to no water and IF you have irrigation in place then you will be one of the very few with fruits for harvest.

=======================

Durian & Soursop that is intercropped with Papaya quite lucky that place is flat but too many rivers crossing the place. The cost of Durian = RM 7.00 and Soursop = RM 8.00 (all depends on supply also, sometimes wait 2-3 months also no tree)

My intention of that land was for the papaya to generate income and cover for the waiting period of 3-5 years for Durian and 2-3 years for Soursop thus i tried ploughing in lots of organic into it. 10 ton of FOM 361 = RM 10,000.00. In that one acre, i am able to plant 400 papayas with 12 durians (40x40) and 48 soursops (20x20).

If this plan works out (hopefully) i can expand and also present this paper to potential investors and show them planting durian or soursop dont have to painful as it is now. LOLx....

I had set up irrigation and i will update the blog by monday. I think my type is the sour one haha...but i will check with the nursery. Prices of soursop fruit = RM 18.00/kg at the market

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Yeah glad we have lots to talk about and when you are back in KL, do call me and we can visit again...would love to get your ideas. You meant Soursop trees ?? If on soursop i am not sure about it but my tree fruited around 18th months.




Sorry for the long post. Do share if you have other thoughts bro


This post has been edited by ParaOpticaL: Sep 27 2013, 07:35 PM

Yes, I totally agree that sharing is good. It create good karma, good positive energy and elevate our own learning. Hopefully by sharing our experience, we can motivate more people to go into farming.

Good for you. Cost of planting stock is low at your place. Here, it's a different ball game.
Durian Musang King $35, Nangka J33 $28. There is also a new variant of Red colored Nangka, quoted at $80 each. Hence I'm trying to set up my own nursery. My first (one) soursop from seed fruited in about 2 1/2 years (harvested). Am taking the seeds from this tree to propagate plus the seeds that I brought back from Vietnam.

Soursop at the wholesale market is only $2.50 to $3.00 (buying). They are selling for $4.00 to $4.50. Nangka about $20 ~ $35 per piece. They cut up and sell loose easily 2 ~ 4 time the cost price.

The present land that I'm planting in does not justify for irrigation. Cost is tremendously high and not feasible. So am leaving it to fate. Rain fed. Avocado, Nangka, Rubber trees, & Soursop should be drought resistance enough.

Yes, Papaya is a good short term cash corp. My trial was good. Am planting the rest of the small farm. Work & cost input is higher than banana, but yield is higher too. Do keep in mind that as the tree age, it gets higher = more work managing & harvesting. Am already replanting the phase 1 of my Papaya. Had culled of some as it's too tall, not healthy, round or yellow type. We can only plant 1 round of papaya, until the main crop grows.

Am still trying to find a 'lazy man's corp' so that I can put in minimum work now and enjoy the harvest later, all with minimum work and cost input . Hope that maybe I can find it in one of these, Avocado, Durian, Jackfruit and Soursop. Am also experimenting with Lime.

Looking forward to your update. Oh yes, am in KL now, but leaving tomorrow morning.

Just to share.
Malaysia ties in with India on agriculture.
http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2013...griculture.aspx

Anyone know where to get beekeeping hat or veil in KL or Sel?

Ex-insurance agent bounces back by running rabbit farm
http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2013...abbit-farm.aspx

Agriculture is a sector that is still important to Malaysia's economy
http://www.thestar.com.my/Business/Busines...as-economy.aspx

Just to share some news on agriculture. Had lots of time today to browse the newspaper as lots of waiting time traveling. Enjoy.

Hi Bro,

Yeah planting stock is abundance cause there are a lot of nursery. possibly you could be one big one in Sabah

The Red Colour nangka could be Clone Yap. Wow your sousop fruited in 30 months. btw how long do they need to ripe ??

if you have the sweet variety please give me some if you have extras would love to get a few.

Well i found out that with irrigation you can get about a 30% difference. Probably you could do for some of your main crop rather than all.

What breed of papaya are you planting ?? I am planting the Foot Long variety. They are germinating quite well on direct planting.

Frankly speaking no fruit tree crops are lazy man's crop haha sorry about that. the nearest to it is Jackfruit. it has less work for maintaining the tree.

PS if you have good avocado seeds, please pass me some if you have extra. my place kinda difficult to get avocado...lolx

Looking forward to seeing you at the farm when you are back

Hi Para,
Yes, I tried irrigation on my little farm before. Unfortunately it was too costly to run and maintain. Selling price is also low here. Not feasible yet. Yes, with irrigation, yield is higher.

Hehe, no plans on doing nursery at the moment. Only doing it for my own planting. By the way, there is a real big nursery close to the city. I visited them before, but pricing is also high. They have lots of varieties, catering for landscaping and farms. They even have a department promoting birdnest, consultant / project management.

Do you know what is the special characteristic of clone Yap?

Not too sure how long it takes for the soursop to ripe. Still learning on when to harvest. Till now I always harvest too late. Came back to the farm, 2 soursop fruits missing. My man says stolen over the weekend. 1 small fruit left but was over ripe. Took off the seeds, while my man ate the fruit. Only about 12 seeds. I'll try to save some seeds for you when I collect more.

Yes, am looking into these 3 fruits as 'lazy man's crop'. Not much maintenance once they grow up. Maybe these are as close as it can get.

Sorry Avocado is off season. Shall get some for you when back in season. Every season, I get some seeds as some fall off/ small.

Today I just collected about 50 seeds from the Nangka, and had our mouth full too.

As for the papaya I bought the Solo Mas, aka Hong Kong Papaya (1st batch, which is quite costly). Am also doing my own seeds for my own planting. I now germinate directly into poly bags (3 ~5 seeds per bag). I didn't get good results on direct germinating in the field (too hot & too many chickens). My trial indicates that it germinates better in the shade with controlled watering (misting). Unfortunately, I do not have these facilities. So I just leave those poly bags under shade. Too dry, it dies, too wet also dies. Luckily am having my own seeds.

hello everyone! stumbled upon this thread and loved it! great to see there's an ongoing forum about agriculture as it's rare to locate a place where stuff about agriculture can be discussed under one roof just like every other thing else. i used to be an active member in LYN but took a long hiatus until my first job (yes, in the agriculture line) sent me looking for any possible channel of information regarding rubber and oil palm. i see there's relatively little information about rubber and oil palm in this thread. my job at the moment is a supervisor for a rubber nursery. my experience is still somewhat at a young stage like sapling but i would love to share what i know and learn what i yet to know, all under learning purposes, and at the same time getting to know more friends, as the agriculture industry can be rather mundane after some time in it, especially when you're alone

Hi Chris,
Welcome to this thread.
Just to check with you, which is the easiest grafting method for rubber. Am going to do some test grafting tomorrow. My first test was a total failure

rubber grafting is not an easy job. in fact my first test was a total failure too.
haven't done subsequent test after the first one so i could only speak from experience exchanging conversation with professional grafters (they can graft up to 1000 stocks in a day with 90% success rate ). methods are more or less the same. it's the aspects that you need to take care of, like a larger socket on the stock to accommodate the scion, making sure the underside of scion is free from any object. the budding stick should be kept as fresh as possible during grafting as the success rate deteriorates if exposed under the sun for a long period. if you're re-grafting from the same stock, you should graft on the opposite and on top of the first grafting since the first grafting might cause wounds to its backside. hope it helps in your test tomorrow. good luck!

Thanks for the tips. Did about 35 graft, but don't feel right, no positive vibes. Guess I wouldn't get any. Another failure

Interesting News

Fish for life
http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2013...h-for-life.aspx

Bad weather over here. Raining with strong wind for the past 3 days. Had some papaya uprooted.

Bad weather and chaos in west coast Sabah

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2013...and-damage.aspx

Can Please help me identify what variety of Mango is this? It started to bear fruits about 3 years.







Am thinking of using this as mother tree to practice on my grafting if it's a good variety.

Thank you.

Interesting News to share.
We may be getting super size fruits in the future!

Researchers clone a gene that regulates fruit size in vegetable and fruit crops

Esther van der Knaap, a geneticist with Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, led an international research team that discovered and cloned a gene that regulates fruit size in tomatoes. This is only the second domestication gene involved in fruit size ever cloned in any vegetable or fruit crop.

The cloned gene, known as SlKLUH, impacts fruit size by increasing cell layers and delaying ripening. According to Van der Knaap, this gene promotes extra cell divisions during the process of fruit development, immediately after fertilization. These extra cell divisions lead to enlarged fruit, while the delay in ripening is likely the result of an extension of the cell division stage.

The research team also identified a potential regulatory element in the promoter of SlKLUH that is hypothesized to control gene expression. The promoter is a region of DNA which is responsible for initiating the transcription of a gene.

“Our findings suggest that the allele giving rise to large fruit arose in the early domesticates of tomato and became progressively more abundant upon further selections,” Van der Knaap said.

The cloning of SlKLUH is expected to increase scientists’ understanding of fruit development processes, not only in tomatoes but in other crop species as well. “We show in this paper that the same gene may have been selected during domestication of chili pepper, leading to increased fruit size in this vegetable crop as well,” Van der Knaap said.

This basic research also has important implications for vegetable and fruit production, as it could allow breeders to manipulate genes to create new varieties with desired size and shape characteristics.

Source: depphosherald.com

anyone knows or heard of filming of egg shell to increase its shelve life?

I am getting headache that my salted egg cant stay fresh for more than 2 weeks and customers had been complaining and return my eggs to be replace and Im facing a loss if this continue.

I saw in alibaba that they sell a machine that wash, dry, and coat it with a thin film that claim it can lengthen the eggs shelves life

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/10769210...r_and_Film.html

but damn expensive man

haizzz...why salted egg in peninsular can be sold in charcoal but here in sabah must be clean one? cleaning the eggs makes it easily contaminated and shorten the shelves life...

This post has been edited by ah_suknat: Oct 13 2013, 03:48 PM

Hi. I found this article and it might be of some help.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?id=1...389543911121195

how to diy a autoclave? @.@

Depending on your size (volume), autoclave uses high pressure steam to sterilize. It's no cheap, under laboratory / medical equipment.

For your usage, maybe you can consider high pressure cooker ( food equipment ). For small volume, trial maybe you can use a pressurized pot? Check with your wife / mum, maybe they can loan you 1

Spoke with an old Indon man. Says it's Apple Mango. Very excited, waiting for it to ripe so that I can taste it.

This post has been edited by MrFarmer: Oct 16 2013, 08:11 PM