Start Of The Dry Season

 Took some time to repair our water retention pond. Repaired the water outlet so that it can hold more water reserve. Clean out the water Kangkong which had overcrowded the pond.









Our cleaned water pond. Found that the fishes that we had put in had grown. Getting some feed for them. Maybe we can do a harvest in a couple of months.







Checked out the water pump as it was redundant for the past months. Changed the engine oil, clean spark plugs. Did a test run, but find that there is a lot of air trapped inside. Problem was traced to the leaky suction hose. Suction hose is costly as it has to withstand the negative pressure without collapsing. 








Guess we are all set for the dry season.

Planting Corn, not as easy as I think.

Planting Corn, I thought was easy. After my first failure of planting sweetcorn, I did more research and found more information that prepare me more, for my next trial.

Current planting technology involve lots of new technology and data. Weather plays a very important role as with any activities. Knowing the weather trend helps to reduce planting risk and increase yield. Long time ago, some clever planters devised a 'Planting Calender'. I was told these planting times had some how been incorporated into the Chinese calender. Planting calender, being geographically based, shall differs from location to location. I am still trying to find our local planting calender. Other factors affecting the calender most is the climate changes that we are currently experiencing. Another is the kind of hybrid that we intend to plant. The seeds that I had bought has a maturing date ranging from 45 to 78 days (am sure that there were no hybrids during those hay days).
Weather Forecast and trend for Keningau

Planting distance. Corn are preferably planted in blocks of minimum 100 to be effectively pollinated. As these are wind pollinated, there is a higher chances of pollination in blocks rather than in (just) rows. The optimum planting distance differs from location to location and types of seeds, it varies from 6 to 20 inches and 20 to 40 inches between rows. Planting depths also varies from 0.5 to 2 inches.

Land and soil. Land preparation, do a soil test to find out the soil condition. This is something that we had never done (village style). Plow the soil to a minimum of about 6 inches. Sweet corns require lots of nitrogen. Use a nitrogen rich fertilizer. Condition needs to be moist and hot for good germination (easy part). Found a cheap PH meter.

Next comes the weeding control. During the flowering stage, make sure the weeds are short. This shall secure higher pollination. Lots of sunshine, some water and some fertilizer. Wait for Harvest.