Plantation Fire Aftermath.

Before the fire.

Here are the pictures showing before and after the fire. We had planned to clear this section as there is a water source, thinking that we could use this area to plant some fruit trees. This section was too steep and the bulldozer could not terrace it when we started clearing the land. Had already cleared a section manually, slashing with machete.

After the fire, we went back to check if the fire had totally extinguished. Another check was done about 4 weeks later, after my vacation. We find that the trunk is starting to rot, with insects inside the rotting bark. The bark had dried off and is peeling off the trunk.

The dying trunk. With the trunk damaged, I don't think we can do any tapping here. We then made a decision to cut off the trunk and leave a stump of about 2 feet. We hope that the roots had not die off and hope to have new growth at the base. Should this happen, then we may have a totally new trunk which we may tap.

 We then saw off the the trunk and did a stock take, total 150 trees affected.

Out of the 150 trees, there are 10 of them which I think are still healthy.

After much consideration, I made a decision to replant the affected trees, as the earlier we replant, then earlier it shall grow.

Bought a truck load of seedlings from TG Agriculture, a nursery producing rubber seedlings. Since the clone RRIM 3001, nicknamed Clone 1Malaysia is very readily available in Sabah yet, our friend suggested we take the clone PB 350, which is a clone good for latex & lumber. It's easily identified by the "round" shape leaves. Manage to load 208 plants into our truck.
Characteristic of PB 350
 Recommended for both latex and timber production. Potential latex production is up to 1,663kg per hectare per year. 1.16 cubic metre of wood volume per tree after 19 years of planting. Resistance to wind damage, pink disease (Corticium salmonicolor), Corynespora leaf disease is good, Oidium and Colletotrichum leaf disease are average. Average bark. Colour of latex white.
Would sure love to get some Clone RRIM3001 in the future as the  specification is even higher.







Since we have some extra, we started to plant those at the new terrace in Parcel 3 and Parcel 2. By the time we were about to plant at the affected area, to our delight, we found some stumps had actually rejuvenated. We then went about checking other stumps, and those that had no signs, we try puncturing the stump slight beneath the ground level. Latex is still available, a definite sign that the roots are still alive.
 Shall leave these and monitor in a month's time. Hopefully by then the new growth is mature enough. We then have to prune it to a single stem. Let's hope that these shall grow back in the shortest time possible.

As for the new seedlings, we shall transfer and plant these in Parcel 6.

Do stay tune for more updates.