Sick Turkish Figgy.

Had 2 Turkish fig falling sick.

Withering Turkish Fig.

 One is withering.

Rotting Turkish Fig.

The other has rot.
Dug up the cutting for inspection.

Rotting Turkish Fig.

 The tip, used to be green & growing turns brown & dried.

Inspecting the Turkish fig cutting after cleaning.

There appears to be some section that is still green.

Inspecting Turkish fig.

The cutting measured about 6 cm. Base on my record, this is what I call Istanbul. A friend of mine Edward named it Turkish Vampire.

Measuring Turkish Fig.

The soil in the polybag don't looks too wet, but the last watering was yesterday.

Inspecting soil in the poly bag housing the Turkish fig.

Inspecting the soil from the top of the poly bag.

The soil at the top section of the soil is not wet too.

Small root at the internal.

Further inspection shows a small root at the inside, no roots / roots died off at the outside.

Seal up the rotten part.

I clean up the rotted part and seal them off with tree dressing.

Re- potted Turkish Fig Istanbul / Turkish Vampire.

 Had the cutting re planted. Kind of like the name Turkish Vampire.

Withering Turkish Fig.

Ants making nest at the rooting section of fig.

 Upon digging up the cutting, noticed a colony of red ants were making home at the section of the fig root.

Inspecting the cutting after cleaning.

 Clean off the cutting and identified this cutting is Acropolis from my previous record.

Measuring the Turkish Fig Acropolis.

 This cutting measure 7.5 cm.

Roots still intact.

No rot at the new growth.

 There are some roots that are still intact and the new growth of green is still good.

Replanted both Turkish Vampire & Acropolis.

Replanted the Acropolis. Shall review them when I go back to the farm 1st May.

Approach Grafting & Stone Grafting.

Distinguishing feature of approach grafting is that two independently growing, self-sustaining plants are grafted together. This self-sustaining characteristic of both plants which are to be grafted insures survival of both even if the grafting attempt is not successful. However odds of being successful are greatly enhanced because of the active growing condition of both plants involved and absence of a time limitation required for the healing of the graft union to occur before the dependent scion dies from lack of sustenance.

This grafting technique could be useful for me as the weather recently is extremely hot & relatively dry. I took interest into this technique as the previous Jackfruitthat I purchased is from Thailand and comes with Approach graft.

SongSang Red from Thailand.

I had also seen Durian being Approach grafted during my trip to The Philippines.

Note the raffles strings.

My Thai friend is also doing Approach graft for Avocado.
My initial though is that I need to sort out how to secure the rootstock to the mother tree. Next, I shall need to have watering source nearby. It also preferably be shaded. Accessibility to the mother tree (not too tall). Am trying to figure how to overcome these problems.

In the mean time, I did some Approach Graft on the small plant-let of the Jackfruit. Just for the feel of it.

Stone Grafting (Epicotyl).
Stone grafting is popularly used in Mango grafting. Am looking into it to see if this is applicable for Avocado. Shall do some reading first and may try some when I get back to the Farm 1st May.

LSU Gold Fig.

 LSU Gold is a huge bright golden fig with amber flesh that is tender and very sweet. It is a vigorous grower. LSU Gold produces large flattened green figs that ripen to greenish yellow, yellow, or yellow blushed with red. The flesh is pink to amber and is very sweet with excellent flavor.

Made an order for LSU Gold Fig. Unfortunately it was held up while in transits and arrived 1 month later.

Great packaging.

Zip lock bag, individually wrapped.

Packaging were great. Paper shred, zip lock bag, each cutting individually cling wrapped.

Unfortunately, most are dried and the heat had caused them to fermented. Soak them over night in clean water.

Dead cutting, dried & woody.

I still see some green in the skin.

Rotted tip, dried cutting.

Next day, I cut off the rotten part. Clean off some of the sealing wax. Planted them on the raise bed next to the avocado cuttings. As I shall be away for the next 10 days. Don't have any expectation for this batch as 6 of them are real dried. The other 4 may have a tiny chance.

Seed Propagating Of Avocado.

Seed Propagating Of Avocado of a lazy farmer.
Decided to do a video for simple seed propagation and post it to Youtube. I find this method very simple and effective.

Simple Effective way of propagating avocado seeds

 Youtube link above.

Bed of avocado seeds.

Had collected many seeds and planted them on this raised bed over the past 3 weeks, starting from the far end. I guess easily more than 150 seeds. As I do not select the seeds and put in whatever that I can lay my hands on, quite a number will not germinate. So I needed a simple & effective method.

Those that were done earlier had started to split and I see some with germinating tip. Hope to see many Avocado-lets in May.

Some of the plant-let from the previous season.

Black Mission Fig.

Let's start some serious Fig work. My Turkish Figs are growing, but unfortunately most Turkish Figs needs caprification. Also I don't now what variety am I having. The special wasp is not available in Malaysia. Hence the flower may not get pollinated and drop, not setting into fruit.

Ordered some Black Mission. It arrived rather quick. Why Black Mission? I had never tasted any fig before, so no  special preference, just a trial run and it was available. Also I had checked with some friend at Ficus Carica for everyone 
 Black Mission is self fruiting, can be grown in our local weather & is easy to manage.

Black Mission
Among the most esteemed and available fig varieties in the world, the Black Mission is believed to have originated from a seedling tree somewhere in the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain. The variety, once known as the Franciscana, became the chief fig of the Catholic missions — and as the variety was adopted by the growing fig industry of California, the name Black Mission was born. This fig is smallish, with dense pink flesh heavily studded with seeds that give a pleasant crunch to the silky flesh. The texture of a perfectly ripe one is sticky and jammy — and those left extra long on the tree, where the sun dries them out like prunes, are extra sweet and gummy.

 Some were rooted & budding when I received. Let them acclimatise to our local weather. Spread them out on a container, with lots of wet toilet papers.

 Took out the rooted cutting for potting. Got 6 of the rooted cuttings.

 Potted them and left them at the nursery.

The rest I keep them at a dark corner in my room.

Temperature here recently is getting hot & dry. I think a temperature of 28 ~ 30 degrees C and a humidity level of 70 ~ 90% should be good. Was experiencing a high temperature of up to 34.5 degrees C and a low humidity of 40%. As my room was facing west, the afternoon hot sun created an oven effect.

Increased the humidity by putting the container into a plastic bag and keeping the bag up. Over the next couple of days, there were no much progress. Decided to try rooting hormone. ( more on this on the next post).

As I'm going on leave, I potted all of them as there is no one to look after.

Let's keep track of their progress when I return in May.

Avocado Cuttings Trial 2.

Did a second trial for the Avocado cuttings.

This batch was bigger and more. I didn't pay to much attention on cutting selection as it's of no cost to me, but I do discard those that I feel that do not stand a chance, like section where there are no buds or new growth especially tip.

Started to use the rooting hormone liquid from Thailand, unfortunately has used up and have to use back the local available powder type. Should had bought more in Thailand.

I started off just sealing the top. I then apply more liberally on the tree dressing to seal up more of the cutting especially the side.

The other thing that I did was to increase the density.

 While I'm at it, I tried some mango cuttings too. Shall check back on these middle of May. I was figuring if this works, then I may have an alternative to propagate more planting materials.

My Turkish Fig In Sabah.

My Fig arrived in Sabah. Had to temporary store them first as I couldn't pot them yet. Also some are not ready (I think). I brought them over in a tupperware and left them in it.

Three of the Istanbul had rooted/ shows big calluses. Decided to pot these first.

An Acropolis and anther Istanbul rooted.

Potted them into poly bags.

Another 2 Acropolis had rooted. As per my discussion with my Fig friends, these Turkish fig is fast & easy rooter, thank you. Still have 6 in the tupperware, shall wait a couple of days more.

 Some of the leafs are starting to grow, light green.
The weather is getting hotter & dryer. It had now rained since I arrived, just drizzle for a couple of minutes. Luckily we had repaired the water supply (gravity feed) s I can water all the plants adequately.
My hygrometer shows temperature & relative humidity as low as 23.3 celcuis & 33%, and a high of 35.1 celcuis & 84%. The low relative humidity is too low. Tried individually wrapped each of the stubborn non-rooter with rooting hormone. Got a air pump, bubble through water to create a higher humidity. Managed to increase the room humidity of about 54% to 68%  in the bin (humidity chamber". Gonna leave them for a week, then check again. Till then.