Paraoptical,

Yep, there are a dozen or so uses. I'll just mention the more common uses.

Empty Fruit Bunches (EFB) are used as mulch, as studies have shown that the amount of potassium found in fresh EFBs is almost as high as that of Muriate of Potash normally used for fertilizer application.

Mesocarp fibre and shell are commonly used as fuel for the mill. This reduces dependency on fossil fuel. On average, a well managed mill can substiture 40% of its fossil fuel dependency with fibre and shell.

The ash from the burnt fibre and shell can be used for nitrogen and carbon fertilizer, but Malaysian government has now prohibited most companies from producing bunch ash, save for a select few. Apparently bunch ash production is pollutive.

A more nouvelle uses of mesocarp fibre include the manufacturing of fibre mats, which can be used for nursery matting, orchid fibre pots, door mats. I know of at least one company who does this as a core business, and they have been doing this for the last 10 years. Very profitable it seems. A more recent use I saw was as fibreboards and carton board material.

Crushed OP shell has commonly been used for soiless media. It has good drainage, but at the same sufficient water retention ability. It is also much easily sterilized compared to soil, a common practice in well established and managed nurseries.

Some research is still on-going for the use of the cellulose fibre from the mesocarp as feeder for bioethanol production, though how it would turn out I am still to find out.

OP fibre has been used to make paper as well, but from the quality of the paper I received, it seem too rough for everyday use. I've also come to know that there is this company from China that is buying coconut and OP logs for making parquet.

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Added on February 23, 2008, 10:30 amOops, sorry about the parquet part... Forgot you asked about the fibre, not trunk...

Some time ago the fibre was also used for mushroom farming, but it appears to have lost favour compared to rice husk. Probably problem with sterilizing the fibre. But as far as I have observed, it is an excellent media for mushroom growing due to the high sugar content of the cellulignic fibre.

This post has been edited by Michael J.: Feb 23 2008, 10:30 AM

hi...saw this thread when im browsing ard.. im a aquaculture student, studying at Uni Msia Sabah. hello all... and welcome to aquaculture industries! hehe...

hi how are you?

glad to have you around.

how's the Hybrid Grouper doing ? and how is Prof Saleem ?

hybrid groupers are doing fine...now on average 3kg each. some does looks like giant grouper from the top view on the B tank.

Prof saleem is doing fine i guess...

r u from UMS also?

Hiya, currently we are using the Fish Protech System from Adelaide. Its really quite a simple water recirculation system. But as u know the simpler the more efficient it is. In the future expansion i've heard news of using Cell Aquaculture Tech, Yup the one thats recently on the news.

Anyone with any help on the Breeding/Seeding clinics?

harnsheng, welcome aboard should you have any research paper or findings regarding your field of study, you can expect some serious viewer here:)

Btw, ParaOptical is more like a practical student of aquaculture - he is running a fish farm now. He went to UMS for fish culturing information and he must've spoken to prof in person.

About myself... not even planting a chili yet, ahh yes, I gotta seed some black chili... I hv yet to send Micheal.J the seeds i promised - no i didnt forgot, just life got in the way :/

Just curious, isnt it easy to sterilize mineral soil by just oven the hell out of it with high temperature compare to by using a pressure cooker?

First time heard about oil palm fibre into bioethanol, perhaps due to most cellulose bioethanol research by western countries which more or less dislike oil palm. Its good to know some progress about it - just that hopefully it doesn't take them 20 years like how they came up with oil palm biodiesel(and eventually not using it).

This post has been edited by rexis: Feb 28 2008, 09:55 AM

Bro... if you want to sterillize one pot, then fine... use those methods... I'm talking about 10-20 tonnes of soil lei.... where got oven or pressure cooker that big? Besides, you wouldn't to destroy soil structure lei... All soils have a threshold dryness that once dried past it, you can never return moisture to it anymore. So the most common method used is steam sterillization.

Erm... Actually palm oil has been known to be a good substitute for diesel more than 15 years ago... I believe it was first brought up in 1990. The reason why it took 20 years to develop what we now call palm biodiesel, was because of the controversies surrounding oil palm. Do note that oil palm and oil palm products are highly political items; the only other plant life that is more political are orchids.

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Added on February 28, 2008, 10:05 amBy the by, anybody here have any suggestion for a suitable potting mix to use for chillies? The mix I used showing different results: Nursery premixed soil, seedling looking yellowish and like not vigour; Alluvial clay of fine particles, the seedling is doing very well, vigour is very good, and leaf appear as healthy green.

Need to transplant some 30 Hungarian Cherry Chilli seedlings soon. Also have Lilac Thai Bird's Eye and Thai Bird's Eye to transplant within the next 2 weeks.

This post has been edited by Michael J.: Feb 28 2008, 10:05 AM

Then... roast the soil like roast coffee, temperature and timing controlled precisely, so roast until the whole thing reach 150 degree C for 20 secs then.... okay okay, only to a small pot, not to a truck full of soil.

Well, I do know POBD main reason for not being utilized(locally) is the price issue as well as some political issue(or NGO) from oversea(for being utilized in oversea). Political tool it is - same as petroleum, anything that able to contribute a major part of national income or outcome is always a political tool. I has read about alternative energy and has always puzzled about our local gov position in alternative energy - most people use petrol and they made biodiesel. Hence its good to know bout some bioethanol under development.

About your chili.... could it be that the cherry seeds you got is actually a hybrid result? Furthermore its seeds, which could be hybrid seeds' seeds, which could result in varying unforeseeable result.

Last time I used to plant chili in 100% compost mix, it is known as "japanese soil" at the pasar malam stall. The chili seedlings can live in the pot without any further fertilizer for up to 2 months and growing deliciously green.

Wait for my black chili lar, 100% Non-GMO and organic, i guess, hahaha. I'm gonna send a whole fruit to you... no, maybe partial fruit, u half i half, thats the one last dried black chili i got, fully ripen and dried in shade.

Mmm.... But frankly speaking i'm quite sceptical about "biofuel" per se... Sure it can alleviate some of out fuel needs, but i hope people do not forget that agriculture is very resource intensive. Water is a major resource used consistently, as well as fertilizer, some of which comes from the petroleum industry;Most need to be mined, like Rock Phosphate (RP)and Ground Magnesium Limestone (GML), which again raises the issue of land degradation. As it is, we are in fact at the point of having a SHORTAGE of clean drinking water... and water is the most abundant resource on Earth.

I'm not saying we should not do agriculture, but what I want to say is do agriculture in a responsible way... Burning food for car fuel is stupid, period. If use waste products of agriculture, like fresh pruned fronds of OP, wheat sheafs and rice husks, or maybe even sugarcane molasses for ethanol production, then fine; these have not much other uses except maybe mulching. But to use corn grains, palm oil, sugarcane sugar etc to convert into fuel, I call that irresponsible, especially when millions of people are dying from starvation. And right now, the situation is made worse because of the demand of such foods for the use in making this so called "biofuel" giving rise to food shortage and immense price hikes. Food prices have literally jumped 30-40% over the last few months!!! For the better off few, we can still afford that sort of price hike now; but for those in a lower income group? What becomes of them? And if we look at the bigger picture, world food production is not enough even right now to sustain the 6.2 billion world population, what more when we start burning food for fuel?

Then some idiot comes up with idea "Let's use a non-food crop instead". No difference. We're still straining the meagre resources left on this planet. The end result is still the same; We're burning precious resources and not cycling them properly. This is what I call irresponsible. This is what I call short-sightedness.

My uncle once told me this: "Doing intensive problem solving is like a person studying the anus of a cockroach; how it looks, how it functions, how big or small it is, and how well designed it is". As I ponder on it, I just feel that although it is important to be intense when solving problems, sometimes we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. If we look too intensely at one thing, we become short-sighted about other things. Yes, biofuel could very well solve our fuel problems, but does it fit in well with preventing further land degradation? Or water quality degradation? Is it sensible to address fuel shortage problems by burning food that could otherwise be used to feed people dying from hunger, another global problem?

To me, in this world there can never be a perfect system. The best we can do is to choose the lesser of two weasels. And biofuel is not the lesser weasel in the current case.

no i am not from UMS. i just happen to know Prof Saleem during an exhibition and he invited me to do practical at UMS on the Hybrid Groupers...

great research being done on the hybrid groupers. i understand they can grow quite fast.

Hi Darkus,

what's the investment like for Fish Protech. i heard its very very expensive for one module. are you with Maju Ikan ?

Hahaha... bro, my Hungarian fellas are ok so far... i need to transplant them into something better lar... The one with yellowing problem is my Tabasco Chilli... Three seedling that I transplanted initially not growing anywhere as vigourous as the single seedling I left as control. I'm thinking along the line of sunlight deficiency, as the place where I kept the three received only 5 hours partial sunlight, about 1.5 hours early morning light, 2 hours afternoon light, and 1.5 hours evening light. The control received about 6 hours sunlight, but full sunlight. My guess is that Chlorophyl A in chillies need to receive at least 5 hours full sunlight to properly convert soil nutrients to sugars at my place. Probably because of higher cloud cover here.

I'd be glad to receive your chilli seeds. However got some bad news: none of the stored Kulai Red seeds I had germinated. One year old only and viability of seeds kaput. Also, my Thai-Cherry hybrid has died from phytoptora root fungus. Fortunately I sowed some of the selfed seeds early on, so now I have a crossing population that will be ready in about 4 weeks time for transplant. Hopefully I can get a good enough parent-type for further hybrid development.

hehe... if u guys need any info, i try to find la...
we all still learning..
me not much knowledge on table fish but as for ornamental, i have some hands-on experience in breeding some of the species..

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Added on February 28, 2008, 6:39 pmya...hybrid groupers did grow fast.. currently average on 3kg each for 1.5 years fish. most believe it could grow even faster if we had enough supply of feeds for them. there is a time where we had a shortage of trash fish and they have to starved.

This post has been edited by harnsheng: Feb 28 2008, 06:39 PM

well, lets just say for a 8 module farm, itll cost u 2mill, not at all associated with maju ikan, but they have sent some workers to our farm for training. They have their own farm in sepang, that is still under Fish Protech operators.

wow... thats very very high modal n investment. what would be the turn-out of using this tech? how much could u get and how long needed to cover back cost and expenses?

Hey,Everyone ,this my project in UPM ,i was planting Sweet Corn, Kai-lan, and BAsella Alba, this wil be last project for my Agribusiness Degree, Share pic with u all


The 3rd Pic was Jatropha do by another Student

This post has been edited by kianwei8: Mar 11 2008, 10:17 PM


Attached thumbnail(s)

KW8, thanks for sharing.

Jatropha, tell me more about Jatropha.

Again, Jatropha is receiving coverage by the agri magazine AgriWorld, and this time it is cover story. The formal president of Pitaya Assiciation(watever they called it) has started with a couple of acres of Jatropha and he even imported a oil press from Thai to extract the oil. Another article mentioned that due to palm oil boycott by NGO for use in biodiesel, therefore Jatropha oil is expected to perform in a few years time when the diesel oil price shoot further.

Anyhow, I guess these guys are not getting the point here. Thou not a consumable oil, such large scale farming do displace food crop and it is not as productive as oil palm. But anyhow, large scale plantation is unavoidable if a certain crop is found being profitable.

Theres part of the article mentioned that it can be used as perimeter crop, if a market demand has been created for Jatropha, farmers can make an extra income out of it. But large scale farming is unavoidable once the demand is up. There are a group of folks even thought about

And ahh.. ic ic, Basella Alba is emperor vege..

- - -

MJ, btw, a little thing about your chili from thai... thai has much more chili farming then Malaysia, therefore, their chili is expected to have more disease, perhaps more variety too, they start treating their seeds with fungicide before sowing. So could it be this reason thats why your poor chili become fungus host?

Just got the latest Agriworld I read about a guy in the article who planting chili, hes new in chili as his farm mainly mata kuching and attempted to plant chili on his vacant land. The article also mentioned Turbo EM and Plantonic which i guess is part of the advertisement, it also mentioned that the farmer apply "activated carbon" around the crop for good. The most interesting part that caught my attention is this folk actually got all his seeds from the supermarket - buy in ripen kulai chili and take out the seeds.

This is the 3rd month of his harvest season, and most of his plants are going strong, pods more then leaves, but the pods appear to be slightly smaller then first harvest.

Know anything bout activated carbon? They looks like those charcoal people used for orchid.

- - -

And the magazine also mentioned about
- oil palm cloning, harvesting, fertilizer case study.
- jack fruit and mango and star fruit
- straw mushroom farming
- climate change, resources, and eco system
- pesticide guide
- compost
- a bit bout plant inheritance and DNA
- sparrow farming,
- about a fish farm that raise keli fish in water container(much like the one Para is doing)
- plankton(as feed) and spirulina farming
- beneficial life form in fish pond
- etc etc
Tell me which one you interest most i bet Para is ringing a bell.

This post has been edited by rexis: Mar 12 2008, 01:22 PM

8 module for RM 2 million.

how much is the production per module ?

got time to inform us more on these few topics ?

you are i am very interested...hehe

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Kianwai,

are those plastic sheets covering the soil ?

Rexis,

Yes but i don't think it is due to that. I have a feeling it is the media used, as the plant that died was using a soiless nursery mix, so my guess is that due to the partially sterile environment it was grown, the plant was not well inocculated against phytoptora root rot. One good reason was that i potted both the bought plant (an ornamental chili) and my Tabasco seed grown plants in the same soil media. My Tabasco is fine, although somewhat stunted (recovering now, proves my sunlight hypothesis to an extent), but the ornamental fella died fast. Similarly, other seed grown plantlets are doing fine. So my observation now is that early stage inocculation is crucial to seedling survival and development. This proves the EM arguement to be valid; at least I'm quite convinved about it.

Expanding on this further, I would like to point out that many plants do have very close symbiotic relationships with fungi. Even more so if the plant originates from a climax community primary forest, such as that in the Amazon and Malaysia. Chili plants in that purvue would most likely be one of those plants, althought they may not be as fussy about who their symbion is. Think about this in a scientific and logical manner: How could a seed with almost no endosperm germinate and develop into a massive plant by comparison? Hence, it is to my view that for good cropping for chili at least, seedlings should not be bought for planting as the seedlings may not have the right inocculum to help it establish itself. Instead, seedlings should be raised from seed in-situ using the soil media that would eventually become the growing medium for the mature plant. In that way, the associated microbes are not disturbed, and the seedlings would have the right combination of inocculum to ensure survival and proper development at the specific site of planting.

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Added on March 12, 2008, 1:22 pmBro Rexis,

You got me at activated carbon. Activated carbon is used for a couple of reasons: (1) As a 'scrubber', i.e. to absorb soil toxins and lechates (2) As a pH balancer through redox reaction, i.e. balancing negative and positive ions in soil; important when talking about soil nutrient uptake and release.

By any chance you have the article in soft copy? Can send me?

This post has been edited by Michael J.: Mar 12 2008, 01:22 PM