Hi Mr Farmer,

i'm seriously thinking of going over to view the land. apparently he has got some interested buyers even at 18k per acre.

hmmm... decisions decisions.

Dear ParaOpticaL,

Apologies for the late response as I was busy. The land that I rented is in Pahang near Pekan. I am liaising with Marble Goby to design the layout of the farm as well as the piping and other logistics. I agree that the worrying issue is the durability of the canvas. According to the consultant, we will have to change the canvas every two years. At one point I was considering to purchase the fiber glass tanks but the cost of one fiber glass tank is too much.

Razkyo:

Marble Goby has a good track record in their production and marketing, something not every "consultant" has on hand. You'd do well to have them on board as advisors.

As for canvas culture, for the short to medium term, it is still alright, especially since you're renting the land. I had the impression you had no need to rent any land. Nonetheless, if you are in this for the long haul, you might want to consider a more permanent solution.

I agree with you; fibreglass tanks cost a bomb. But they do last a lot more longer than canvas, and they can be made to withstand greater pressures (i.e. large amounts of water, and thus, culture of more fish).

Next trip home is on 11th June. See you then. Staying for 9 days. Yes, would like to visit your farm. The more we discuss, the more idea shall crop up.

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Added on April 30, 2012, 7:22 pm

Fully agree here, to bee on the conservative side, keep initial expenses to the minimum (unless you have a big fat account/unlimited support). As mostly, there shall be lots of unforeseen problems/ expenses. Michael also has a point on the durability. As most probably you wouldn't be doing all ponds in one go, maybe a half/half. That is start with the lower cost in phase 1.

As for consultant, go for those with good track record. ConSultant, break in up = CON you first, then INSULT you 

Razkyo
Where is your targeted market? East coast I guess you shall be competing with sea fishes. West coast I guess rather far. Have to think about logistic, transporting your harvest. I think there is most probably some mortality loss during transporting?

Sorry Para, can not, still in Sabah for May, only back to KL on 11th June 

Mr Farmer:

Nutrient competition in soil is related to the chemistry of soil. It may be a little technical, but what you'd need to know is that everything has a balancing point; too much of one thing can be just as bad as having too little.

The explanation of nutrient competition is as follows. It might sound sexist and crude, but please bear with me:

Think of nutrients as women on a shopping spree during the Big Sale. There are young teenage girls, there are 20-something girls, there are the more median aged women, and there are the more mature women.

Now think of clothing outlets as being plants, who depend on the "nutrients" paying a "visit" to their outlets in order to survive.

Each outlet would have particular types of items on sale prefered by those within certain age groups, and therefore "need" the specific age groups of women to come visit their store. Eg. teenage girls might go for clothing items worn by the Hunter Game's leading lady; 20-something girls would probably go for Korean girl-group fashoin, etc. etc.

So these outlets will have promotions from time to time to "attract" particular age groups of women to "visit". Often, these promotions are very targeted, whereby the age groups will hardly overlap. But once in a while, the outlet smight put on promotion something that is desired by multiple age groups (eg. LV bags are quite popular, I'm told). What happens, is a mad rush, which clogs up the outlet, resulting in delayed sales. In the case of actual outlets, well, they always get paid in the end; but for plants, this competition can starve the plants quite badly, damaging it significantly.

The second scenario is something like the above, except that in this case, there are less women during the Big Sale, and they are accompanied by non-targeted groups of people. We shall call them "non-targeted nutrients". Visualise them as the brothers, boyfriend, husbands, fathers, etc. etc. of these women. And all these fellas are super kiam siap dudes. And instead of being accompanied by one dude, each woman is accompanied by 2-3 or more (i.e. there are more dudes in the shopping mall than gals; not gonna happen, but hey, think creatively).

Normally, the "non-targeted nutrients" are quite liberal when going to the shopping malls with their women. But during Big Sale time, especially when there are less "nutrients" a.k.a. women for the outlets to woo and entice, these kiam siap brothers, boyfriends, husbands, fathers etc etc will hold on to their women tightly. Because they know, with so few other women about, the chances of "overspending" at those enticing outlets is very very high. In other words, if the women want to enter an outlet, the dudes will pull them away, thus preventing them from "visiting" and "spending" in the outlet. In plants, this literally worsens the state of starvation faced by the plant, accelerating whatever nutritional disease that is already present.

Now, with the right balance of all the above, things become very peaceful. No mad rushes, no controlling boyfriends/husbands/fathers etc. The outlets get their fair share of spenders, and there is no overspending.

Get the analogy?

In the case of what's probably happening to your plants, substitute scenario 1's "women" with potassium and magnesium. But consider magnesium as the more mature women who aren't nimble and quick-moving as the younger women (potassium), and are less in number in the shopping malls. The aggressiveness and sheer abundance of potassium being attracted to the plants outcompetes magnesium in being absorbed by the plant; this results in a "false" magnesium deficiency, which means that even though magnesium may be available is good quantity in the soil, the sheer amount of potassium greatly reduces the chances of any magnesium being absorbed. The more mature women (magnesium), although lower in number, generally have more cashflow than younger women (potassium), and so can impact the outlet's sales figure quite significantly; losing their business will put a dent in the bank account of the outlet in the long run.

Hope this paints a clearer picture.

And to any female readers we have, my apologies for the analogy; but you gals do make it simpler for us guys to visualise things. 

just wondering anyone here using fish bone fertiliser for your plants? any advice of where can i get them?

Hi dudes...

I've been stalking this thread for quite sometime and made up my mind to really make agri a part of my life 

Shroom cultivation was always the one thing i wanted to do... So as a start i tried cultivating abalone mycelium in a glass bottle.. My first attempt is a total disaster... Well... How can we ever succeed if we dont make mistakes... 

Giving that i have totally zero exposure to agri, i was thinkin.. It is avisable for me to start off with cash crops such as chilli and shrooms to give me the experience and cashflow? As i wanted to commit fulltime to it as this is wat i really desire for! 

Hi People,

Am looking for quality Papaya Seeds, such as Eksotica 1, 2 or 3.  Any ideas where to get these from?

Musang King (Mau San Wong).
Thinking of germinating these from the seeds, but the seed of these clone looks pretty small, wondering if these can germinate.    Got about 30 of these, after finishing our durian feast.

Separately, I've been on a durian hunt. Well actually, I've been hunting for durians at my local durian stall. My goal was to try as many different varieties of durians as I could find. It is one thing to read about them, look at some pictures, and go "uhm hmmm", but it is a completely different thing to actually eat them.

Also, I'm collecting some seeds from each variety to germinate. Although most of them would probably be open pollinated, and thus hybrids, it has come to my attention that no new varieties had been added to the registry since the early 1990s. So maybe, just maybe, it is high time to find Malaysia's Next Top Durian.

My list and description of durians tasted so far:

Variety: D28
Location: Mantin
Fruit: Somewhat oblique or teardrop shaped, small thorns at the top, progressing into large, broad, widely spaced thorns towards the bottom.
Smell: Aromatic, not strongly pungent. Pleasant, reminds one of D24
Aril: Golden yellow arils (flesh), very creamy, very thick, sweet with slight bitter tang on the finish. Extremely filling. Few seeds per locule, which are moderately large. Seeds are somewhat trapezoid shaped.

Variety: D144
Location: Mantin
Fruit: Kidney shaped, with moderately long, well packed thorns, which are very sharp.
Smell: Aromatic, not very pungent.
Aril: Light yellow arils, creamy, a little runny, but thin. Sweet with almost un-noticeable bitter tang on the bite. Quite a few seeds per locule, some shrunken, which are quite large compared to total pulp content. Seeds are bullet shaped.

Variety: D2
Location: KL (Banting origin)
Fruit: Kidney shaped, with noticeable reduction of locules on one side. Moderately spaced thorns, which are sharp, but somewhat pliable.
Smell: Intensely aromatic, sharp sweet smell that can be overpowering in a closed room.
Aril: Whitish arils (flesh), very creamy, very thick but slightly runny, sweet with strong bitter notes on the bite till finish. Extremely filling, but addictive. Few seeds per locule, many shrunken. Only 3 locules contained arils, the other two locules were sharply reduced. Seeds which are moderately sized, ovoid with tapered end.

Variety: D88 (?)
Location: KL (Banting origin)
Fruit: Heart shaped (like beef heart), densely packed thorns, recurved at the top.
Smell: Aroma not noticeable before opening. Once opened, is moderately pungent.
Aril: Whitish grey arils (flesh), very creamy, mederately thick, sweet with slight bitter tang on the finish. Many seeds per locule (4-5), which are small-medium sized, and has distinctive black "brush" marks on the sides. Shows some signs of uneven ripening, but is generally good eating once dropped from tree.

Variety: D103 (?)
Location: KL (Banting origin)
Fruit: Perfectly globose fruit, with short, even, and widely spaced sharp thorns. Yellow-green colored.
Smell: Aromatic, with some pungency. Can be overpowering in a closed room.
Aril: Whitish yellow arils (flesh), creamy but runny, and very sticky. EXTREMELY BITTER ON THE FIRST BITE. Taste mellows significantly after consuming first pip, with slight hints of vodka. Many small seeds per locule (3-4), but mostly are shrunken and reduced. Pleasant to eat in alternation with a sweet durian. Seeds are ovoid, but flattish.
One thing I'd like to note about the last few entries, is that about 1-2 hour after eating them, there is a tendency to get drowsy. Not sure if it is due to any "additional" stuff in the durians (read: agrochemicals), or if the vodka taste has anything to do with it (natural alcohol compounds). I had some of my best sleeps ever in the past two days when I started eating those durians.