Mother Nature, the weather.

This is the first drought since taking over the farm full time and finding it a big challenge. Even though am anticipating it, we still have difficulties as at now.

 

We started off our preparation by shoring up the main pond, thinking of keeping a higher reserve of water. Then we clean up the water kangkongs (see older posting Start Of The Dry Season). We then proceed to fire up the water pump, which had been redundant for the past few months. Did a general servicing like changing the engine oil, spark plug, clean the air filter & etc. Upon running, we find the pressure built up is a bit low and plenty of air bubbles.  The fault was traced to the leaky in-take hose. Cost is high for these type of hose as it is non-collapsible. Had it replaced with a new hose. We felt so confident after preparing all these and waited for the dry season to come.

 

Unfortunately our timing was a bit out as we were unable to fill our main pond fully before the drought came. This time, it came covering a much bigger area.

Our water sources consist of pipe in gravity water that we share with our neighbors’, there is a small creek that runs across our little farm. From this creek, we had dug 2 water retention ponds. Another well at our neighbor’s land. We managed to get last year. What we did was that we use the pipe in water to fill our retention ponds. The pipe in water is from a small river a couple of kilometers away.

With more than 23 days of no rain in between, our creek had dried up. The well had dried up. The river, water is getting less and it cannot create a pressure to reach us as we are at the end of the pipe and could be at a high level.

 

The pump was shifted lower and closer to the pond as the suction power is insufficient. Due to the water shortage, we quickly put up a shade for our Avocado seedlings.

 

The shade is a D70, meaning that it is suppose to block off 70% of the sun light. With the strong sun light I think it may not be sufficient. Maybe should had gone for D90.

Had been checking on the weather forecast daily, expecting rain in the coming week. Let’s hope it arrive in time. Stay tune to see if we manage to get by this drought.

Agriculture Sun Shade Netting

Redevelopment Of Hilly Plantation, Parcel 1, 2 & 3

Internal road at Parcel 1 before repairing.

Finally we had started our re-development program. We had started by repairing / extending the internal roads of Parcel 1, 2 & 3. These roads were no longer accessible for Parcel 1 & 3.

The internal road (same section as above) is accessible now.

With the road done, we had embarked on our weed management program. We purchased a high pressure sprayer, running 2 spraying lance.

Trying out a "mobile spraying station". With this pump we can do mass spraying at a faster rate. Am also looking in foliar spraying of fertilizer in the future.

We started off on Parcel 1, 2 then 3 on the top left. Note the burn out weeds.

While trying to terrace more land, we hit rocks and could not process any further. Note the new road running from right to center.

Our immediate target is to finish the weed management and fertilizing for the 2nd quarter by the end of July.

Papaya Farm

Our test batch of Papaya are bearing fruits. We had used these to test out the market. Feedback is pretty encouraging. We had gathered planting, caring, harvesting, post harvesting, transporting and marketing experience from these. Have 31 trees so far.

Germination of Papaya seeds is less than 14 days. Growing for about 6 weeks, the transplant to field. Flowering shall set at about 2 ~ 3 months. Another 3~4 months till harvesting. Good harvesting can last to more than 3 years.

After much considerations, we are now planing to to do a Papaya farm. Stage 1 we hope to have 200 Papaya trees at our little farm, Parcel 6.  Started a nursery and germinated seeds from local and imported source. Getting good germination from the local source, but only manage to germinate only 4 plants of Solo Mas, from the 10 grams seeds that was purchased.
Our initial trial, we germinated on trays and raised beds, then transfer to poly bags just after they had germinated. Plants are left to grow at the poly bags till they are about 20 ~ 30 cm before being transfer to the field.
Getting poor results during transferring to poly bags. Watering is critical during this stage as too much water promotes stem rot.  
Am trying out germinating straight in the poly bag on the third batch to save labor.Putting 3 seeds (local) per bag and latter either do some transferring or elimination.




Stem rot, the stem at the soil level is attacked by virus and nutrient gets cut off and the plant die off. Had devised a method to help plants at the early stage. Fold down the poly bag to the soil level, keep the plant on a brighter side with more sunlight and more wind. The idea is to let the top soil to dry off.



Test out a few methods with transplanting to the field. As it was the end of the raining season, was worried about plant-lets drying up. Did some shades initially. Then just transfer without shades as the roots are well established and if the roots are not much disturbed, then it should establish well.

Am trying to keep the soil moist for this plant, as it is drying up. The 4 Mas Solo, had transferred it close to the nursery and am hoping to use it for propagation when it fruits.

Am trying to look for other clones like Taiwanese and Eksotica 2 for future planting.

We had planted more than 130 plant-lets so far. We had it next to the road, next the creek and this last area which is the largest. Should be hitting our targeted plants of 200 by next month.

Our next stage is to germinate about 500 plant-lets for Parcel 1~3. More updates in a few months' time.

Project Avocado

 Had decided to start the Avocado Project after doing a research on the market and initial trial.
 The initial trial was planted in September 2010, the small plant between the two markers on the left. Had visited some land with Avocado trees and most of it are healthy. We also have four trees at our little farm which we had been harvesting since we had taken up the farm.

Data collected from the local and city markets are very encouraging. Demand is strong as Avocado is very nutritious favored by both the locals and foreigners. As with all fruits, Avocado is seasonal and good grades of fruits fetch good prices.

We now certain that our local condition does meets the requirement for Avocado.

Our initial plant from seed had grown till this size @ Parcel 1. The tree is healthy and had pruned it a couple of times. The pruning technique that I used was wrong as for Avocado, we need to prune branches and top it so that it shall have more branches. Avocado fruit at the tip.












These are the 4 Avocado trees in our little farm. We collect the rejects and dropped fruits for the seeds. Bigger seeds have a better germinating rate. We germinate the seeds till they sprout and roots before transferring them to poly bags. We care for the plant and water them regularly.

We have slightly more 120 plant lets at the moment. Most of them are growing steadily.







Stage 1 Project Avocado.
  Our target for Stage 1 is 200 numbers of Avocado plant-lets of about 450 mm tall.

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.