sounds interesting... this tree suitable on wat type of soil?
might consider to join since my friend got abandoned land about 10acres at mlk.
how much is the estimated initial investment amount?

Hey guys! I would like to propose a joint venture project to anyone who is interested and has already planted their karas/agarwood tree. My friend and I are currently searching for the best inoculation technique in the international market. Once we have identify the best technique, we will bring it into Malaysia.

In a nutshell, what we will propose is that you will be incharge of planting those karas/agarwood tree and later on my friend and I will come in to inoculate those tree for you. Later after that, we will split the profit among ourself based on our agreement. If you are interested with it, please pm me your detail such as:

Your full name:
Contact number:
Number of karas tree you have:
Age of the tree:
The location of your plantation:

Remember, this is not the final proposal. We still have to work out all the detail. If you are really interested, we might have to find a day and discuss this face to face.

Yup there are a variety of inoculation techniques out there and as usual, everyone claims that their technique is the best without any results to back them up. My advice to everyone is to make sure that you have some rough idea what those techniques are and how they work before you purchase any. Alot of people takes this opportunity to sell fake inoculation techniques just to make some quick bucks.

Another thing that everyone needs to remember is that do not overestimate your profit margin. Make sure that your margin is "logical" so you will not screw up with your financial management.

Regarding vegetative propogation (cutting), it can be done but if i am not mistaken, the mortality rate is high among seedlings propogated this way. Another important point is that, seedlings propogated through this technique usually does not have a nice tree stand. Meaning that they are usually not straight and they tend to have a lot of branches.

My recent trip in KL was short so i wasnt able to meet with anyone. Sorry about that. I am planning to go to KL again around June so perhaps we can now make some planning to meet up? We can all sit down and chat over a cup of coffee.

hi, everyone

i m interested to see and hear about agarwood. I'd like to join in discussion if theres any gathering.

amir I see you planted one tree haha, good time for beginner like me to followup. Looking forward to hear from you guys.

Hi Sham903n,

Not a problem if you dont want to tell your location.At least good to know you with new idea and a group of people with same interest.

Hopefully our dream will come tru in Saudagara Agarwood.....

Thanks for the link...
p/s:I have land for sale around 30 Acre..suitable for Agarwood.Interested just contact me.

In my opinion, this is the most viable way to sell your karas tree without too much risk. You will only need to wait 5 years instead of 7 years and furthermore, you would not have to worry about the success of the inoculation. If you can sell those tree say around Rm1000.00 each. Assuming you are planting those tree in 3x3m spacing you will get approximately 1 thousand tree per hectare and that alone is Rm1million.

I am station in Sandakan. I might be in KK during that time but I cannot confirm anything for now. Regarding the borrowed technology you mentioned earlier. Is it a common technology used on oil palm? If you are serious about conducting this experiment do let me know. I am interested with the result.

Ooo, you plan to do grafting? Hmmm... i am not sure what is your intention of doing so but I can tell you that it is not economically viable since you will need to add in cost for grafting into your financial management plan. Not to mention that you need to have alot of skilled worker who has experiences with grafting.
I can answer this question. From my understanding, the department is still experimenting on this technology. At the time being, we are not promoting or encourage the usage of this technology until the department have enough data to back up the result.

Bear in mind that when you are clearing the land up, you should leave those big tree around to give some shade to the karas seedling that you want to plant. Even though karas is a light demanding species, it is good to have some shade early in the planting stage to improve the survival rate. Once the seedling has established itself on the site, then you might consider felling those big tree to free up space and to reduce the competition for the karas tree.

The best inoculation technique? I cannot give any recommendation at the moment because I have only tested 1 technique so far. That is why I am trying to get a friend of mine to source out various inoculation technique out there so that I can test it out and later compare the results. I know where to get the trees for testing. The only problem is I do not have the techniques to test with. Mind you, some people guard this technique as a trade secret and most of the inoculation technique is the market is expensive.

amirbashah - Where is the location that you are planting your karas and how big is the area? I got a few friends in KL area that might know a few contractor who is willing to take up that job from you.

It is a good thing the thread is getting more attention lately.

Jasben plantation? Is it the company based in Kelantan? The price for the seedling is reasonable. Regarding the Rm2 per tree planting service, does the cost cover the 3 month monitoring operation? Or was it Rm2 per tree per month?

My friend is not in Malaysia at the moment. Will try to contact him and ask him regarding the contractor when he is back.

The best species for gaharu production? That is another grey area that needs to be study intensively. No one can say for sure what species is the best but somehow people has relate each species to the final product that you can get out of it.

A. malaccensis - wood chip
A. crassna - oil
A. subintegra - (i am not sure about this though)

Boleh ke sesiapa terangkan sedidit perbezaan gaharu dengan chandan? Kerana semasa di Pahang dahulu orang asli selalu pergi car chandan(candan?) tapi tak pernah dengar cari gaharu.

wow mr kwaytiau... mana-mana pun ada hahaha... looks like u really are interested bro, anyway i prefer if we could meet up so that we could discuss further about this, besides i'll arrange a site visit to our plantation so that we could have a clear picture bout what's the project gonna be like 

hmm, my dad has a small piece of land, around 4acres in perak as well. just wondering how to start with agarwood plantation and starting cost.

Pictures of my gaharu trees


My first tree


Someone please help me clear my land 


Small lake in my land

---

Added on June 7, 2008, 8:09 am

Those trees are not so good - they are too tall and thin and they should not have multiple stems. Objective should be to maximise the yield of agarwood per CA Kit, not per hectare of land (because your most expensive input is the CA Kit not the land or tree).

---

Added on June 7, 2008, 2:05 pm

Yes - too close planting and also lack of correct pruning (to maintain only one leader/main stem) when the trees are young.

---

Added on June 8, 2008, 12:10 pmOoo by the way, a planting spacing of 3x3m or a planting density of 1100 tree per hectare is still viable if you are planning to conduct thinning on the trees in 1-2 years time. If you want to save cost and time, you might as well plant it using 4x4m.

I mean that when the young agarwood tree is growing (even when it is still in the nursery) it often has a tendency to form two or more main stems, i.e. one or more of the branches tends to become more dominant than is desirable and so it starts to compete with the original main stem. If this side branch is not removed it will form a main stem leading to a mature tree with more than one main stem or trunk. Not all side branches do this, so I don't mean you should cut off all the side branches - but where one side branch starts to become equal in size to the main stem then you can either cut it off or just cut it back a little to reduce its apical dominance. Later on it is good to cut off the lower side branches so that you have a nice clear stretch of main stem in which to apply the CA Kit (because it's difficult to work on a tree when there are many side branches in the way).
You need to call the Healthy company not the Happy one!  Actually I don't know what is the price of CA Kits in Malaysia, that depends on Healthy Business. US$30 is our price in Lao PDR for a number one size CA Kit (including the booster treatment and application service).

I agree that if you have a lot of trees the financial investment to treat them with CA Kits can be very high, but then so can the payback. One strategy would be to treat as many of the trees as you can afford one year, then 12 months later after you have harvested and sold the agarwood you can reinvest your income in treating the remaining trees, i.e. you don't have to treat all 1,000 trees at the same time.

Okok. I will try my best to explain it in detail.

In timber plantation establishment, the first thing that you have to consider is what sort of spacing that you want to use for your plot. You can either choose a close spacing such as 3x3m which has a planting density of around 1100 tree per hectare. OR you can choose a wide spacing such as 5x5m, 5x6m which has a planting density that is lower than that of the 3x3m spacing mentioned earlier.

There are pros and cons on either approach. The close spacing such as the 3x3m will need more planting material in the initial planting stage and not to mention other resources such as labour, time and modal. This spacing will encourage the tree to compete against each other especially for light (canopy establishment) so the trees will grow vertically. And as for the wide spacing mentioned earlier, there are less tree per hectare so the tree will not have to compete too much against each other compare to the tree planted in a close spacing. The tree will grow horizontally (diameter) instead of growing vertically (height).

For timber production, our priority is to grow trees that is tall and straight with less or no forking at all. It is safe to assume that it is true in agarwood production too like what Happy Farmer has mentioned earlier. BUT there is a catch in using a close spacing for plantation establishment. Sooner or later, you will run out of space for the trees to grow (when canopy establishment is achieve). The growth potential of the tree is capped by this factor and the tree will not be able to grow to its full potential.

This is where THINNING treatment comes into play. Usually 1-2 years after planting, you will have to carry out thinning or else it will not be effective. The thinning process is quite straight forward. It is as if you are playing the role of nature where you select and pick out trees that is not growing well (survival of the fittest). By doing so you will free up space for the remaining tree. If our initial planting density is 1100 tree per hectare, after thinning, we will have a density of around 500-600 tree per hectare. Of course this will add up to your management cost but you can still sell those felled tree to generate some return for the time being.

That is really a mouthful! I will try to post something more detail when i get back to the office tomorrow. Will try my best to answer you guys if you have any question.
Sorry for the hold up. Will keep you guys informed if I am going to KL anytime soon.

---

Added on June 8, 2008, 8:52 pm

You dont need to prune your tree this early! Wait till it has establish itself on the site and wait till it is starting to fork/branch out. Only then you should start to prune it. Doing it now might as well kill your seedling.    I will post something regarding to pruning too later. Yes LATER... (cross my fingers)

Below are 2 photos of agarwood seedlings - one in the nursery and one already planted. In both cases you can see that one of the side branches has started to form a second main stem. Therefore some pruning should start even in the nursery to prevent this from happening.

[attachmentid=492949]

[attachmentid=492950]

Since no one is going to take up the job of organizing the gathering, I would suggest something like this;

Venue: Starbuck Coffee, Berjaya Time Square
Time: 1400
Attendance:
1. eehtsitna
2. neilson1312
3. ammar
4. Sham903n

The reason that I suggested that place is that I am familiar with the area. Starbuck should be cosy enough for everyone to sit down and chat about agarwood. You have to pay for your own drink though since we dont have a sponsor.

For anyone who is interested in the gathering, please pm me your contact number so that I can add you into the list and inform you of any changes to the plan.

See you guys later!