Serai (Lemon Grass)
Went to the market today to try to sell my Serai. There were no takers. Was told that our Serai is too small / skinny. If I understand correctly, there are 2 types of Serai, 1 for cooking, another for making oil? Cooking type is small while the oil type is large?

Or are my Serai too skinny? How to fatten it up?

Mr. Farmer:

Hydrogen peroxide is a normal treatment for disinfecting farm tools. You could try your method, but maybe only after you have harvested the crop, and some time ahead of planting your next crop.

As for serai, yes, there are a few types. The two most common ones are the serai wangi, and serai pagar (or pasar, or biasa). Serai wangi is the one with the most essential oil content, while the normal serai is usually used for cooking. The essential oil from serai has been known to cause gastric discomfort in some people when consumed.

Again, can't see the pictures, but as with most grass family, you might like to look at nitrogen and phosphorus content, lesser extent carbon. Grasses are high energy users, and in order to allow for this energy uptake and conversion, freely available phosphorus in the soil is critical. Unfortunately, phosphorus is usually locked in mineral form, while free phosphorus tends to escape quite easily. You might need to source this from compound fertilizers, as I believe it isn't as easy to get phosphorus mineral fertilizers nowadays, since it is a component in weaponized aerosol bombs.

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Added on October 17, 2011, 8:34 pmBro, I see nothing wrong with your serai lar. At least over here, they look normal.

Maybe you should try looking for serai wangi to plant instead. See what the locals prefer.

This post has been edited by Michael J.: Oct 17 2011, 08:34 PM

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Added on October 17, 2011, 8:34 pmBro, I see nothing wrong with your serai lar. At least over here, they look normal.

Maybe you should try looking for serai wangi to plant instead. See what the locals prefer.

[/quote]
Yes, it looks "normal" to me too. Shall try see if we can fatten it up a bit, as replanting takes some time, let alone have to source for Serai Wangi.

Cash Crops for Rubber plantation.
Was visiting a rubber plantation the other day and notice the vast land available in-between the terrace. Am think of a crop to plant. Needs to be drought resistance (hi slope, hi hill, only dependent on rain water), low maintenance, short/mid term, reasonable commercial value, ease of harvest (whereby we can have time to harvest in bulk, unlike banana need to harvest when ripe, otherwise it's over ripped, as the said land is quite a distant from town).
Traditionally had been planting Banana.
Was thinking crops like Serai, Groundnut, Sweet potato. Otherwise may continue with Banana

Mr Farmer:

Hahaha.... Banana by far is easier. You don't have to harvest banana when it begins to ripen, unless you have a thing against using carbide or ripe apples to speed up ripening of green bunches lar. Only that with hilly land, the yield potential drops quite a lot.

However, isn't the light intensity of rubber inter-rows (even on terraces) very low? Or do you mean something else?

Haha, no , got nothing against carbide. Had actually bought some, but need to experiment on the usage (never used it before). With carbide, guess we can kind of harvest "more" and reduce the collection trips to make it more feasible.

No too worried about the light intensity, as the rubber tress are only between 6 ~ 9 months old, and I guess we should have 2 ~ 2 1/2 years to go. As for the banana trees, it's not blocking (light intensity) the rubber trees as we trim and transplant the sucklings quite regularly. Also moving to higher value Bananas, like Pisang Emas, Berangan and some Cavendish.

As the area is quite large, and we are trying to maximize the sloppy area, was thinking of what other crops that we can go for. All suggestion are welcomed

[quote=MrFarmer,Oct 18 2011, 12:59 PM]

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Added on October 17, 2011, 8:34 pmBro, I see nothing wrong with your serai lar. At least over here, they look normal.

Maybe you should try looking for serai wangi to plant instead. See what the locals prefer.

[/quote]
Yes, it looks "normal" to me too. Shall try see if we can fatten it up a bit, as replanting takes some time, let alone have to source for Serai Wangi.

Cash Crops for Rubber plantation.
Was visiting a rubber plantation the other day and notice the vast land available in-between the terrace. Am think of a crop to plant. Needs to be drought resistance (hi slope, hi hill, only dependent on rain water), low maintenance, short/mid term, reasonable commercial value, ease of harvest (whereby we can have time to harvest in bulk, unlike banana need to harvest when ripe, otherwise it's over ripped, as the said land is quite a distant from town).
Traditionally had been planting Banana.
Was thinking crops like Serai, Groundnut, Sweet potato. Otherwise may continue with Banana


[/quote]
Maybe Groundnuts fits the bill?
Groundnuts
Climatic conditions, soil and water management
Groundnuts are grown in the warm tropics and subtropics below 1500 m above sea level, and in temperate humid regions with sufficiently long warm summers. Optimum mean daily temperature to grow is 30°C and growth ceases at 15°C. Cool temperatures delay flowering. Groundnuts cannot stand frost. Between 500 and 600 mm of water reasonably well distributed through the growing season allows a good production. Nevertheless, groundnuts are a drought-tolerant species and can withstand severe lack of water, but yield is generally reduced. If harvesting conditions are wet, aflatoxins (severe poison produced by some fungi such as Aspergillus spp.) may develop on the nuts. Aflatoxin contamination is a major hazard to human and animal health.
Because pods develop underground and must be recovered at harvest, crumbly, well-drained soils are preferred, but plants grow and develop adequately on heavier clay soils. For optimum growth, soil pH should be in the range 5.5 to 6.5, though Spanish types tolerate more acid conditions (pH 4.5) and some cultivars grow well in alkaline soils up to pH 8.5.
Worthwhile to do a test run?

Mr Farmer:

Before you go into Cavendish, please get more information on the crop. As I know, for export purposes, Cavendish need chill room treatment. And fingers ripen at different rates, very uneven. Prices are good though, at about RM5 for 5 fingers in many retail outlets.

Bro, groundnuts need sandier soils. Bris series soils are suitable. You could try planting, no harm trying.

The reason I recommended banana is because it generates more income compared to other crops without the need for much value adding. If you're not too particular, you could try planting legumes, like Azuki or mung beans. They can help in nitrogen fixing, i.e. add nitrogen from air into soil, so it might be a good choice. Returns are not great though, about RM1,635 per acre if yields are around 15 cwt/acre. Some Australian growers I know actually intercrop mung beans or peas with corn, both to add nutrient to the soil, and also as a secondary crop to corn since the beans or peas are climbers.

[

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Added on October 7, 2011, 10:01 pm
Just planted about 30 plant-lets. Hope they all grow well. See you in six year's time.

[/quote]

Haha bro you should plant more than 30. Btw which species did u plant? While not native to Malaysia i believe u can get Crassna variety from sellers. The trees will be ready for inoculation in 2-3 years. But i recommend that u wait a further 2 to 3 years after inoculation before harvesting to get better results.

[quote=teteret,Oct 20 2011, 10:04 AM]
[

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Added on October 7, 2011, 10:01 pm
Just planted about 30 plant-lets. Hope they all grow well. See you in six year's time.

[/quote]

Haha bro you should plant more than 30. Btw which species did u plant? While not native to Malaysia i believe u can get Crassna variety from sellers. The trees will be ready for inoculation in 2-3 years. But i recommend that u wait a further 2 to 3 years after inoculation before harvesting to get better results.

[/quote]
don't know what species wor. These were given to me. Shall get some pictures, maybe you can help me identify? I still have about 50 more, and am still looking for empty space to plant. Say how difficult to inoculate & harvest? Maybe I can plant these at the sloppy gradient (steep) land, since we don't need to visit it much. What says you?

[quote=teteret,Oct 20 2011, 10:04 AM]
[

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Added on October 7, 2011, 10:01 pm
Just planted about 30 plant-lets. Hope they all grow well. See you in six year's time.

[/quote]

Haha bro you should plant more than 30. Btw which species did u plant? While not native to Malaysia i believe u can get Crassna variety from sellers. The trees will be ready for inoculation in 2-3 years. But i recommend that u wait a further 2 to 3 years after inoculation before harvesting to get better results.

[/quote]
Hi Teteret,
Care to help me identify what spices this is?



Hope these are the top species

These are some of the plants that are showing potential growth. We shall still need a couple of months analyze to the yield. Yes, had planted lots of banana trees, harvesting the first batch. Still had not started on the Cavendish, as out of the 60 tissue cultured plants-lest that we bought, only 8 survived till now, but this is due to mismanagement. How about the Berangan type?


Groundnuts are sprouting. Shall be planting more.


Sweet potatoes, propagated by stem cutting, are showing signs of growth. Shall expand more.


The Serai is showing signs of growth, hopefully we can fatten it this time
We can't really plant a single crop on too large a scale as the market here is limited.

Mr. Farmer:

I will tell you what I think after seeing the pictures later tonight.

Some opinions on banana. Berangan by far will fetch you a very good demand in the domestic market, as we Malaysians just love our sweet stuff, and the banana is one of the sweetest varieties around. You would also likely get good prices for the variety, as huge tracks of banana plantations have been wiped out in Peninsular, due to fusarium infection. However, you need to be very careful when managing this variety, as once disease sets in (due to translocated infected soil, infected farm tools, or even human contact from infected area), it will rapidly destroy everything. This includes other crop species, like chilies, brinjals, tomatoes etc. Cavendish is supposedly more tolerant, but with the way the disease is evolving, we really don't know when that tolerance will fail. Many banana scientists are in the fear that domesticated bananas will soon become extinct, as soon as within the next 10 years. More resilient varieties than the Cavendish and Berangan include the Tanduk (a plantain), Nangka, and possibly Abu/Awak. Usually the cooking bananas show more tolerance than dessert bananas.

I agree with you about not putting all your eggs into one basket. Diversification is a good option, and I believe you have already done sufficient market survey to make informed decisions. I would also like to add one other thing: value-adding. If there is a way of making some of your produce more desirable and fetch better prices without being too costly or troublesome, no harm looking into that. Candied sweet potatoes or bananas are always a nice offering. Or chocolate covered bananas. I've tried serai toffee before, and it is actually quite nice.

Good to know about your serai. I hope the same for you too.

Found those guys that were eating off our Bayam. It had just rained in the evening, and I was resting by the tree. I though why were they so much flies? I tried to shoo them away, but they wouldn't Bug.

There were so many of them.

It's an invasion.

Even caught them doing their 'thing'.

Yo mr farmer, im dont know for sure but all have similar value considring they are plantation. Let me know your progress

Gaharu / Agarwood.
Read this article, just to share,
[URL=http://www.squidoo.com/agarwood]Production and marketing of cultivated agarwood
I guess locally this Gaharu Technologies Malaysia is doing well. It's located in Gopeng, Perak.
http://www.gaharu.com.my/index.html
Checked on my 30 odd Gaharus, couple died due to dehydration. Shall plant up the rest soon. Contacted Gaharu Technologies Malaysia as I read from their interview, Gaharu is not supposed to be planted with rubber / oil palm & other trees, I wonder why.

hi wanna ask, how about rubber plantation. It seems rubber will have bigger ROI than palm oil?

becasue apparently gaharu doesnt do well with fertiliziers!

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Ooophs, I just put some fertilizer (immature rubber 15, 15, 16 + 4 Mgo) on the 30 odds Gaharu
Any tips on how to care for the trees?

I guess there are more factors to consider, rather than ROI.
Just like choosing a wife, beautiful or not? Big or small
Would suggest you look at
1 Land size
2 Soil type
3 Accessibility
4 Collection center
5 Expertise / experience
6 Targeted harvest time
7 Investment budget
8 Helpers
etc.....
Agriculture is a mid to long term investment.