HI guys, me along with some partners just rented 5.5 acre of agri land in Kuala Kubu Baru. It was an ex-farm land but has overgrown as it was not managed for some time. At the moment we've hired several labourers to do land clearing.

It is perched on a hill slope with very old rubber and durian trees on the slope. Then a 10 feet stream flowing thru the land dividing the hill and a big fish pond which currrently overgrown with white and pink lotuses. Been told there's haruan inside at the moment. Around it are agri land with random trees of papaya, durian, limau kasturi/ purut, banana and jackfruit.

We're planning on free-range chicken, some goat for goat milk, cows(tentative), some home-stay and camping spot. Fish wise still unplan yet. Oh ya, and an area for herbs and spices that has medicinal value like, misai kucing, lemon balm and the likes.  Will upload some pictures when i go down again coming weeks.

BTW anyone knows where can get best quality quality chicks? I've heard of DQ farm in bentong having the best quality organic chicken in the country, but unsure if they sell chicks coz as far as i know, many organic free range chicken farmers are very protective of their organic chicks.

Hope to share info with fellow farmers here. Cheers.

Lease is between you & owner. Most states you should not have problem (legality) for lease of 20 years.

lainux:

While there are many manuals out there stating that durians can be inter-cropped with tropical hardwoods like teak, the real question is should they be inter-cropped?

For one, both teak and durians are tropical rainforest species that tend to compete against each other for both nutrients and growth space. More so when cultured together. This strong competition will result in poorer crop performance, which will affect your returns.

That being said, if you are still firm on getting teak seeds, try checking with the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM). They usually have seeds, and sometimes even tissue cultured seedlings.

I hope you are aware that although teak does grow very well in Malaysia, you won't be able to get any returns until year 10 or more. At that age, the girth of the wood allows it to be used for making compound furniture items, like doors, cupboards etc.

(Note: Teak wood below 10 years of age are only suited for electric poles, which in Malaysia, is not regularly used.)

Alternatives to hardwoods, you could consider short-term fruits like bananas. Or keep kampung chickens. They scratch up the soil, which allows better soil aeration and nutrient seepage, and they feed on beetle grubs in the soil that damage durian roots. In addition, their manure will add nutrients back to the soil. The only downside is that they will attract cobras.

Most of the Jati (Teak) planted near our area didn't make it commercially. Most were cut down to make way for other crops. The latest that I saw was 1 month ago. Size were just slightly larger than lamp post.

With you lease of 10 years, maybe you shall need to look into something else. Just my thoughts.

Yes, commercial culture of teak has high failure rate, simply because not many people realize that teak trees are not acacia or rubber trees.... you can't plant them the same way!

What makes it worse are less than useless extension officers who do not provide all the necessary information to would-be growers... like how teak tree "consciously" avoid contact with each other as they grow, meaning if you plant too high density, they will just be tall and thin. Or how teak roots actually cannot tahan "wet feet" conditions, i.e. too high soil moisture, and their growth will be affected, even leading to death.

That's great to hear! You are definitely forward looking.

Hmmm.... personally I find teak to be the best option. Other cultivated species include the ironwoods (belian, Indian Rosewood etc.), binuang (Octomeles sumatrana), meranti (Shorea sp.), Kapur (Dryobalanops sp.) etc. You can ask FRIM for further suggestion and give them your specifications. Just keep in mind that most tropical hardwoods are very slow growing, and some may be protected now. Teak is considered the fastest amongst them all.

If you want light hardwood species, which are way faster growing (6-7 years), you might want to consider Kelampayan/Laran. If FRIM suggests to you Acacia species, tell them to fly kite.... the Acacia plantations in Sarawak are all dying off due to disease, and even groups like Ta Ann are clearing off their last remaining Acacia parcels to plant other species.
Aside from FRIM, you can consult with M-Gen Propagation Sdn Bhd. They commercialize tissue culture of tropical hardwoods, and specializes in Kelampayan. Their website is down for maintenance, but you can check out their Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/Mgen2020
PS: M-Gen also does tissue culture of other plants, including MD2 pineapples.

Those few farm that I observed, yes very high density, maybe 5 to 8 feet, yes, super thin. Even on slope.

But then how do they survive in the wild?

As for the question about thinning... I would like to add on a few other thing:

Height is not as important in timber quality compared to girth. What I mean is that for timber merchants, there is little use for a 100 foot tall tree that is only 10cm in diameter, compared to a 10 foot tree with a trunk diameter of 20cm.

Bear in mind that for optimal growth, trees should be spaced 2 times the natural canopy space it occupies from the next growing point. And to clarify, canopy space is less critical than root growing space; the natural canopy space occupied by a tree is an approximation to the root space it requires to grow healthily.
Growing teak 5-8 feet apart from each growing point is industry practice, especially in Thailand. However, I'm wondering if the person realizes that he should be coppicing the trees.... depending on soil nutrient profile, coppicing should be done regularly.
The first article is done in Thailand by Thai and Japanese researchers on coppicing teak:
http://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_file...abilitation.pdf

The journal also includes other tree species, such as Eucalyptus etc.

You can only answer that, as you know what your strategy / planning. Fruit trees more work = higher returns? Usually easy stuffs, lesser return. Some fruit trees need 10 years + too to see return. Plant just don't bear fruits at maximum. It takes a couple of years to "peak", Tree farming, less work, high return= Gaharu ?

Just curious why you want to have a forest?

Yes, trees do get stolen. I had rubber sapling and Musang King sapling stolen, even after planting for a couple of months.

lainux:

The whole idea of coppicing is to manage the supply of trees you are growing.

When coppicing is done, the trees that are cut-down will regenerate new shoots from the stump (note: only if the tree is one of those cut-and-come-again types). From the new shoots, you'd only choose 1 or 2 really strong shoots and let them grow. These new growths will also take about the approximate number of years to reach the desirable girths.

Eg. for teak, coppiced teak stumps will put out shoots quite quickly, and the selected shoot will take about 10 years to reach the desired harvesting girth (+/- 20cm).

But in the meantime, the extra "breathing" space created from coppicing allows the remaining tree stands to grow better, which improves the quality of those trees and their wood.
So let us use an example to illustrate this:

Let's say you plant 600 teak trees on 1 hectare of land. You know that it will take about 10 years for your trees to reach marketable sizes. But you also know that the more growing space each tree has, the better the quality of the wood. And the better the quality of wood, the higher the price you can command.

Thus, you decide to implement coppicing technique. What you'd do is allow the trees to grow to about 5-6 years age, and then for every 1 tree, you remove 1 neighbouring tree. Thus in effect, you have removed 300 trees from your original 600.

Now this does not mean those 300 trees removed are gone forever, no. They will put up new shoots soon, and by the time they are 4-5 years old, the older stands can now be harvested for sale.

Therefore, you've created a tree-harvesting cycle of 4-5 years through the use of coppicing technique.
As for the comparison between tree farming and fruit production... they are about the same in terms of work, really. It is just that the type of work will be different.

With fruit trees, your crop are the fruits, and you will need to protect your crop against pest, diseases etc. With timber plantations, your crop is the tree itself, and you will still need to protect them against pest, diseases etc. Sarawak used to have large tracks of acacia timber plantations, but now they are shuttering them down. Why? Because of fungal outbreak, wood boring beetles, lightning strikes (oh yes, lightning is a big problem in timber plantations), and of course theft. Theft is inevitable, especially if you have valuable timber species.

But to answer your question more directly, tree cropping requires less intensive attention compared to fruit cropping. However, by "less intensive attention", it does not mean checking the farm only once a month. It is more like having the luxury of checking the farm once every 3-4 days instead of every other day.
As for creating a forest-like environment... sure, that is a good idea. But do talk to some permaculturist about that. As far as I understand, permaculture focuses a lot about natural balance. And the permaculturist I know really put in a lot of work to achieve this balance, so it is not going to be a walk in the park, so the speak.

But yes, once the permacultured farm has reached its natural balance, there is a noticeable scarcity of disease outbreaks. Even when an outbreak does occur, the intensity is often very reduced compared to intensive farms.

Mixed trees do grow better, as long as they are compatible. Some trees are just bad idea to grow. For example silver oak is know to produce toxins that it injects into the soil through its roots, which are poisonous to seeds and seedlings of all other tree species, but has no effect against animals, humans or soil organisms. Trees like casurinas and certain pines also produce a similar toxin, but through its mutualistic mychorrhiza.

I don't think the trees / plants can actually protect the river bank. The current if it's strong , shall wash away the soil, even rocks. I think the trees / plant only helps stabilize, but would not protect.

Maybe you can consider Vertiver (grass)?