You need to check whether the durian tree is
-what type of durian? Musang? D24? or just Kampung?
-old? or young? (Age affect the production)
-tall? short? (Affecting chemical spray)
-on flat land or slide land? (Affecting the taste of durian)

1acre needs 50kg of fertilizer. And each 50kg fertilizer around RM200. (fluctuates depends on the supplier mood)
Then, whether a durian well be tasteful or no taste depends on the quality of the fertilizer and the frequency you use the fertilizer.

Pesticide, everytime durian season will need to spray to prevent your durian spoil by bug

From information that you've given, I assume that 7 acres is further away from the main road, and there will be risk of having wild boar in your orchard once in a while, unless the land is completely surrounded by fence.

Durian tree on flat land tends to produce green coloured durian.
Durian tree on slide land tends to produce dried-leaf like coloured durian. (bitter taste with higher price)

My grandfather owned a small durian orchard, roughly 2-3 acres, mainly D101 and D24
i can tell u that durian price is not as high as 60's and 70's, is not very profitable, i collect those durian with my grandfather and everyday got around 200kg, the wholesale price for normal durian is around 50cent per kg, D24 D101 is roughly RM1-2 per kg, one day earning could be RM100 or lesser than that, Musang King could fetch up to RM10 per kg if i'm not mistaken

u can plant some fruit tree in between, banana, Mangosteen etc

the only way of taking loan is mortgage loan, the interest will be higher than housing loan AFAIK
seriously, if u want to generate income by this orchard, u don't sell it to wholesale, get a transport and send it into KL and sell it, from selling it yourself u can get a better price

And there were times where the price of oil palm dropped until RM50 per 1 tonne(1000kg). Oil palm trees is harder to take care and palm oil fruits are frequently being stolen, by outsider and also insider(worker). One of my family members have oil palm orchard.

Banana is the easiest-to-plant fruit tree and fastest growing and production of fruit. You need very little of fertilizer or not at all. Grade A and Grade B banana is being sold for RM1/kg and RM0.50/kg respectively to supplier. We have a deal with our experienced worker where he will do all the jobs and we will sell the banana, and he earn 50% from the profit.

there's no sure thing in agriculture.

Last Sat survey durian price in KL Chinese area.

D24 from RM10-12/kg 
Musang King RM23/kg 

Crazy price, I did not buy any to eat. Then, I goto KL Malay area and buy kampung D24 (not pure D24) at RM6/kg. Just to taste only, not yet go all the way.

Therefore, unless you are willing to load and bring it back to KL in 4WD or lorry and sell yourself, the middlemen won't pay high price for it.

It currently belongs to my family members. I did help out during the time when the price of durian was high back then, and few years back when the price dropped tremendously(where the lowest grade of durian is 10cents/kg).

Actually, Bentong's land will be very expensive because many people from KL tends to buy the land there due to the distance factor. Perhaps you can find your land at Raub?

About the labor thingy, you can hire indons to look after your land after you've bought it. The experienced worker working for us(more than 8 years) and is given certificate by Jabatan Pertanian during the visit few months back isn't costing us more than RM1k/month.
But then, you will have to apply for permit.

There's still much for you to learn and same goes to me.
Yes, currently the price is around the range.

Erm... Don't really know about this as I don't have part in that but I thinking selling banana is easier than selling durian. Banana is recent plantation.
Yes but stealing durian isn't that common as stealing oil palm as villagers there have their own land and durian trees.
Still, it depends on individual taste. Some bitter D24 is very nice too.
10 years ago, we did have ~3000 water apple trees in between but water apple also problematic, especially bug and easily rotten. Now mostly longkong(langsat-like fruit), banana. Mangosteen, rambutan and san lai chee(mountain laici?), only got a few. Oh ya, and some pineapple too.

We have 5 ponds sizing around 25x25 square feet each at one of the valleys with fresh water fish like pak su kong (cat fish) and few other types of fresh water fish. Turn out that this lure some of lizard which then capture by our net and became dishes on the table. Now nobody take care of the ponds so basically is just let it be the way it turns to, and have become fishing pond for our family members who are interested in fishing.

We have 3 parts of non-connected orchard, one near the main road, the other one far from main road up the mountain, another one deep into the forest, around 100 acres.

8 years back we had 2-3 workers only, now we have around 5 during durian season.

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Added on June 30, 2009, 9:53 amRM50 per tonne was during early 2000. And I clearly remembered that time many oil palm orchard owner chopped down their tree to replant the oil palm tree or, change to another type of plantation.

So far our banana trees grow healthily, and we sell the fruits once every 2 weeks.

The current buy back price by wholesalers or agents are:

D24 - R5/kg
Raja Kunyit/Mau San Wong - RM10/kg

This is Bentong/Raub pricing.

Cheers,

1 ac of land can plant about 650 berangan trees. The size of the bunches of the banana depends on many factors i.e. irrigation, type of soil, maintenance, disease etc. Some berangan bunch can go up to 20kg or more.

Banana calculation (just an example as no two farm are the same)
Let just say that all 650 trees in an acre have fruit (no wild boar attack and got proper irrigation and land preparation) and each tree produce 18kg. Market price for ex-farm RM1.2-RM1.70 (depending on area and size of banana). Therefore 1 ac banana sales = 650 x 18kg x RM1.50 = RM17,550.00. Bananas very easy to sell for all varities as supply not enough for local market.

Those interested in fruit and vegetable prices, visit link below:

http://www.famaxchange.org/

People steel anything that has value including durians, bananas and even cattle by truck loads.

Bro, still hunting for land? What is the price per ac in Bentong for orchard?

Grass also good business, as long as you got free water source then ok, well that applies to all cash crops.

As for durians, anyone facing unripe D24? Is it because of the dry season?

The owner sure lah where got say no good. Any research data to proof his claim? Worms may improve the soil condition but I doubt it can replace fertilizers.

Seems like a good biz for banana!  But from that figure, how much profit can one see? 10k?

Profit, well it depends on many factors i.e. irrigation, soil type, land preparation, type and method of fertilizer application, disease (Johor was bad recently). seedlings, etc. And say if you are employing a supervisor to take care of it in addition to indon; forget about  it unless you are the supervisor or you planting 20 acres and above. Somemore after the 3rd harvest the banana gets small.

Don't get me wrong, banana is very profitable cash crop (compared to oil palm which takes a long time to recover cost more so now with land costing more)  but soil and management determines your output.

For more info on fruit planting, cost and profit. Go to Mardi's book shop at Serdang.

Was thinking of some bermuda grass.  US has nice grass compared to our philipine or taiwanese grass.  but more maintenance.

Where's your market for bermuda? Yah bermuda colour is nice, kind of blueish green but like you said maintenance cost higher.

Worm compost is the new thing in this era, organic and cheap to produce.  I am experimenting it myself at home.  Will update on my progress.
If you are thinking of this as a business, better go study the market as demand not good as I was told.

D24 at RM2-3/kg is probably a realistic figure now as it is now Durian mid-season with larger harvest. RM5/kg would be early season.

Bottomline, to make money from Durian, you either have to have a super big orchard (20hec above) or you sell the durian on your own (ie. durianSS2). Otherwise, just to break even for maintenance or enjoy them yourselves.

Vermicompost is actually now getting popular as commodity veg farms like Guthrie and SIME are going organic. Guthrie alone is comsuming 20+ tonnes of vermicompost per month. Guthrie supplies organic veg to all tesco hypermarkets. In comparison to bio-chem fertilizers, vermicompost is no where near in terms of NPK values but it has values that bio-chem fertlizer don't. First and foremost, bio-chem fertilizers will kill a plot of agri land in 3-5 years. Wherelse vermicompost will ensure sustainability in terms of nutrients and condition. By conditioning the soil, plants will have better nutrient absorption rate while maintaining health to resist fungus and bac/virus attacks.

A bio-chem farm will have to rely solely on chem pesticides to resist fungus/bac/virus. That is what we ALL are eating now....CHEMICALS. You wouldn't want to know what some irresponsible farmers are doing today. All they care is profitability. So, don't always believe that eating veg is healthy .

Well, if you plan to own your own farm/orchard, why not start vermicomposting? I know I will....

Cheers,

If it is your dream to own the land, go ahead to do it. As long as it won't affect your financial burden to a point that you know you will be in trouble. I have the exact dream as you. Always wanted to own an orchard to tend to during my free time, having freinds to go over to lepak, etc.... Knowing that you own something is always a nice feeling. How I wish my dad left me an orchard... so now I know my children won't curse me for not handing over an orchard when I leave this world.  Hahaha!

It is human nature to do a lot of calculation and consideration when we want to embark onto something. When you start calculating this and that too much, nothing will be done in the end. But then again, don't be too greedy la... Too big piece of a land is also sometimes a burden to maintain. The piece that I will be getting is about 5 acres. How to take care of 5 acres?.... think later.

So...if you believe you can afford it, GO FOR IT! What happens later, time will tell. At least after 30 years you won't look back and say, "Damnit, I should have bought the land"!

Cheers,

where is the land? I know a few land near karak or ulu yam that cost around 19k per acre

around 8-9 acre per land grant. Owner are selling it en bloc. Not that sure how in is it. just heard it from word of mouth, advertisement and online. There is a few land with crystal clear stream and already planted durian

Land already planted with Durian. 50% D24, 40% MSW and 10% others. MSW still young though. Total 100+ trees but still got space. Still deciding on inter-crops and location for my little hide-out hut :-).

I thought you are already buying the land?

1acre needs 50kg of fertilizer. And each 50kg fertilizer around RM200. (fluctuates depends on the supplier mood)
Then, whether a durian well be tasteful or no taste depends on the quality of the fertilizer and the frequency you use the fertilizer.

Pesticide, everytime durian season will need to spray to prevent your durian spoil by bug

Like I said, there are really a lot of land for sale in that region. I personally visited a few and yes, some of them were in the range of 20-25K/acre and even freehold. But when you see the place, you will say to yourself "OMG, let's go". Not easy to find a well maintain land.

There was one piece I saw and fell in love with it as there was a very very nice river flowing next to it and according to owner, the river is flowed from Fraser's Hill. The water is crystal clear and really cold. My first thought was "I finally found the perfect piece". Next, was time to inspect the durian trees....OMG! all of them were infected with termites! I randomly chose a spot and dug to the ground...holy crap! this is termites country!

So there you go.... At the end of the day, it is the combined elements that would probably be the deciding factor and not just price alone.

Some of them were so hilly even my toyota hilux cannot make the climb safely. Some of them has no legal access road and have to pass other land owner's property and the list goes on.

There was one which was heaven on earth but owner wants 100K/acre and total land area is 10 acres. Reason is there is a super nice waterfall and river flowing right in the middle of the property.

Buying a piece of land is like choosing a wife. Some pretty and sexy but may not be wife quality. Some not so pretty but you know they will be a good wife. Some are both pretty and good wife quality but then you are afraid that others will snatch her away one day. Complexity in life........hahaha!

Which place?
How many acres is it? Our orchard doesn't have water pump, we have a small dam at the top of the hill with pipe to our orchard and shared by few orchard owner. This water can be drunk and it's very cold too. The Indonesian worker at our orchard get the water source from this system. Because of the flow from the pipe is high, it generates electricity for the workers and even burnt the dynamo sometimes.

50kg/acre/month for the month during the fruiting season, about once every week. Where can you find the worm compost?

I tried using durian husk minus the thorn for worm to compost. Didnt turn out good with the rotting and durian smell from it 

Access is not bad. Just 50 meters of legal laterite access from main road. For maintenance, dunno yet...have not think about it yet. Best way to get loan is refinance your house and buy cash.

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Added on July 11, 2009, 12:01 am

Location is Tras, just a few kms before Raub town. Where is your water source? Underground?

how big is 1 acre? able to have 18 trees and your house I guess 1 acre is damn big?

Do u have ppl manage the trees or u do all by yourself?

oh you bought a land at Raub. May i know where  is it located? size? I am also looking at land in that area. If you have time, i would like to seek some advice.