A visit to Parcel 1

Parcel 1, my favorite Parcel. This is the Parcel where it all started. Our road /plan for farming. When I was a kid, I dream of having a farm full of banana trees. Parcel 1, the easier accessed (out of the first 3. Our base station here.
A very peculiar tree, growing only vertically with no side brunch at all. Parcel 1 is doing rather well except foe the stolen trees. As Parcel 1 was the first that was planted, the trees in this Parcel are the biggest. Soil at Parcel 1 is also beginning to turn brown, which is good for planting. This shall open other opportunities for us as integrated farming.

Another tall tree, but this was trimmed. Trimming / pruning the lower brunch so that the tree shall grow taller faster, lesser brunch, ease tapping in the future. Time for the next round of fertilizer in June. This time, we shall have to increase the quantity of fertilizing. Hope these tree shall be growing fast.

Other development in Parcel 1 is that the Banana trees that we planted had begin to bear fruits. Once it is harvested, we can start re-planting it's sucklings. Planting more cash crops, it maybe able to supplement our expenses. Shall be planning to plant more Banana trees in Parcel 1, then expand to Parcel 3. We have 4 varieties of Banana, Berangan, Pisang Emas, Cavandish and those that they use to make goreng pisang. Let's hope that we shall have plenty of Banana harvest by next year. We'll need to have more harvest per time as to cover our transportation as our farm is in "off" location.

Our helpers had started to experiment planting of white chillies and it seems to be thriving well. Shall most probably expand on these. This is also a cash crop that can be harvested in a couple of months. Last check the ex-farm price is $ 15 per kilo. Shall be leaving some to ripe to be use as seeds.

Our helpers are also experimenting with groundnuts and seems to be thriving too. Proper planting distance shall be 3 X 4 feet. This shall leave some space for the groundnuts to flower, ripe and drop to the ground. Without space to drop to the ground, no groundnut shall be produce. Let's see how much groundnuts it shall produce. Shall plan after we review the harvest.

Sweet potatoes, a hardy vine type of plant. Can be used as ground covering (preventing weeds ), young leaves as vegetable and the roots for food. We are still looking for the Japanese strain, (purple color skin and purple color roots. Ours now is a mixture of purple color skin, yellow roots and yellow skin, yellow roots.

Our helpers are trying long beans too. We are leaving the beans for seeds.

This is what had became of our failed ginger patch. Shall have to clean up the weeds and find the ginger. I guess just a couple survived.

Our chicken coop. Plant to start a large colony of free range chicken here. Last picture shows some young chillies trees in between the rubber trees.

Thai Super Sweet Corn

Our first trial of Thailand sweet corn is a failure. The corn did not grew well. Some were not growing, some retarded growth, some did not bear fruits, some even died / did not sprout. This is the flowering stage. The tassel is normal, but the stalk of this plant looks too small.

Weeds were thriving well. There were lots of ants in most corns plants, red and well as black ants. Guess they are there for the sugar. Am guessing that should the weeds grows higher than the corn, it shall interfere with it's growth and pollination. Shall have to keep the weeds lower than the lowest ear.

The fruit size is small. The stalk is normal and strong. Leaves are green and wide. Not enough nutrient?

First harvest which we tested. It was so sweet. The corn is also very crunchy. Like the taste, texture and smell even though I'm not a corn lover (eater).












The second harvest. These are the bigger size ones. Others all small. From this trial, we had identify some problems that leads to this failed production. Lost of seeds due to many chickens. Weather was too went, as there were too much rain during the last 2 months. Soil not suitable as other corns (chicken feed) are thriving. No fertilization used. Due to their sweetness, i guess they require certain fertilizer more. We also tried using 1, 2 and 3 seeds during planting.
Shall do more trial under most controlled conditions as we still have some seeds of Thailand Super Sweet and other Hybrid corn. Hope we have better produce then.

A visit to Parcel 3

Parcel 3 is looking good, except for some landslides. Most of the Rubber plant-lets are growing healthily since we had the Coccidae under control. Let's hope that there shall not be any new disease. 

As this is a bigger coverage, the planting time differs up to 6 months. We have trees that had stabilized and also some that has just been planted. We had also identified some areas to "add" more trees like along the roadside.

One of the strong tree. Guess we can start trimming soon. Strong green stems and leaves. Good growth rate.

This "younger" tree is along the top, which was planter later.

Another growing tree.

This tree is only starting to stabilize.

Looking down from the top most point of Parcel 3.

Looking across Parcel 3.

Coccidae, Black soft scale, recovery

 We had kept the Coccidae under controlled, after we identified it back in March. We resorted to manually removing the shell with brush (semi hard baby milk feeding bottle) and stick. Removal do not need to be 100%, removing those at the top edges will do, as those at the bottom are the hatched eggs. Removing those at the bottom helps too.

 Second prong of measure is to spray the plants with insecticide/ ants killer. The ants actually protects the Coccidae from their natural predators. Hence removing the ants helps.

Note the hole at the tip of the scale. These are some hatched scales still attached. We had just a small numbers of fatality as it was discovered at an early stage and successful treatment administered. We shall still keep track of this is the coming months.

Landslide caused by heavy rain.

Heavy rain during March till May caused a couple of land slide at our farm. Land slide occurred in Parcel 2 and Parcel 3.

The main access road to the top is impassable at the moment. Luckily we still have access by using the side access. Hopefully after the rainy season, we can clear the land slide. As it is now, there is no point clearing it as it slides again.

Theft, Ants and Humans. Ants steal for food. Human steals for greed.

Note the ants.

We had some theft lately. The ants were stealing our egg plants seeds. They were moving it by the bulk by crossing a wooden stick to our germinating tray. Had the stick removed and the ants are still trying to cross the water. Had increased the depth.

Note the loose soil.

 The other theft were even worst. About 70 rubber trees of about 7 months old were stolen. These were the grafted clone trees from Lembaga. Our losses are tremendous as we had wasted about 7 months on each trees.

 

 Some trees were stolen along the whole terrace.

 Some were taken alternatively.

Note the missing trees in between.

Note the missing trees in between. Worst still, Lembaga Getah had issued circular to stopped selling of clones (whole of Sabah) until September in order to fulfill the government project first. We had to resort to getting the non-clone plant-lets.

A visit to Parcel 2

Parcel 2, from the access road, which is the western side. viewing south. The parcel ends at the button shape tree (single). These are the pahse 1 or parcel 2, and were planted late last year.

Most of the trees are growing well. Those Coccidae affected trees, after removing most of the infection, are growing back, but it's not as tall because the growth were stunt, during the infection.

 

From the access road, looking down to the end of Parcel 2, phase 1.

Parcel 2, phase 2, which is the eastern side. The location is a bit odd. Its separated from phase 1 with a steep slope and a small river. In fact both sides of phase 2 is side 2 rivers, like a Y. Luckily the access road is just next to Parcel 3. We had recently finished planting here. We are making further arrangement to plant a row of trees along the left side (ours) of the road. Guess it can accommodate maybe 70 trees as the road is very steep and long. There is also a small area across the 2nd river. Guess we'll leave it at the moment.

View from the lowers terrace, southern side of Parcel 2, phase 1, back to the top.

The last lowest terrace of Parcel 2, phase 1.

A replacement tree on the last terrace.

Another replacement tree. Note the previous death tree (standing, no leaves).

A recovering tree (from Coccidae).

The top Southern edge of Parcel 2, phase 1. This is where our rain collection hut is.

Just realized that we had more area on the Parcel 2, phase 1, northern end (lower). As I did not walk down the track. We can't drive through as the road has eroded. Not sure if this are is planted as it's a newly terrace area.
Overall, Parcel 2 is progressing slowly as planned. There is no short cut in agriculture. We can only provide better care, that is nutrient that the trees required and weeding. Weeding is important as there are a lot of the parasitic vine plants that coils around the tree at a very fast pace and deprive the trees of sun light. Our next fertilization application shall be June.

Updates on plants that we had planted back in March.

The ginger plant had been transplanted successful. We had planted two types, Chinese Ginger and Village ginger. Both looks good after transplanting, but we do have some young plants dying on us, which I guess most probably we could have damage the roots while doing the transplant. Checked on our ginger plant nursery, there are still some ginger plant sprouting, especially from the sawdust covered patch. I did some transplanting few days ago on some new sprouting. I find that the roots had grown into the soil and it makes trans planting difficult. I would propose for our next germination, we shall a 5~6 inches sawdust bedding first, then lay the ginger flat. I think it shall have a higher/faster yield. Had dinged up the deeper ginger, relocated to the top and it's sprouting now.
The groundnut patch is on the upper left of the 1st picture. It's growing well and pretty green. It has started to flowered. Groundnuts shall be produced when the flower withered and drop (bend) down to the ground. There are instance where you see healthy growing plants, but no nuts. Hope that ours shall have big and juicy groundnuts and ginger.

Yam, these are growing well and should be as there were (and still) lots of wild yam before. Yam is easy to plant and do not need much care. We had add another 60+ Yams on the other side of the stream.
Corns, the Thai Super sweet (white maize) is a failure. It's growing so slowly, skinny and not consistent. Some is fruiting, some is not growing, some dying and lots of no growth. Lots of weeds in the area, are doing some weeding but don't think it'll help much. Failure could be lots of possibility as we are planting village style. Guess we shall most probably finish off the left over seedlings and stick to chicken feed corn.

The Chicken feed corn (red color maze) is doing well and growing steadily and consistently. It's growing faster than the weeds and not much care is needed.

Pineapple, surprisingly some are bearing fruits. We had planted about 20 plants, just for testing and maybe create some plant-lets. Guess we shall not buy the pineapple hormone this time as it's the first planting and only a couple is fruiting, hence it's not economical to buy.
This area is a low laying area and has a pool of stagnant water. It drown even the hardy Chicken feed corn. We had dig a drain to drain off excess water. Shall weed off the weeds in a couple of days and have a better picture on what to be done here.
More updates on the progress of the farm in the coming days.