Bagging Of Soursop, Annona muricata .

Bagging up Soursop fruits. Was inspecting my soursop and found some infected with mealy bugs.

Mealy bugs on my soursop.

After having treated them with power multicide, it started me thinking, why not bag it up. I don't really need to do it now as my intention is just to produce seeds for sapling. Just for fun. I used old news print, 2 layers as I wasn't prepared.

I'll do it with plastic bag the next time, most probably a size of 20" X 12". Actually I had deviced a plan to bag up with plastic bags, which I tried on the Jackfruit. Punched a couple of holes on the lower edges for water drainage / ventilation. Punched small holes along the perimeter of the opening. String it up with a raffle string. Climb up, bag the fruit and just tie up.

Annona muricata L

From my research, blue colored bags are better as insects don't register this color much. Even with the old news print, I try to abstain from colorful prints.

Bagging I'm sure shall not solve all our problems. I'm sure it helps on the fruit flies. Still need to treat for mites & bugs. I guess I can expect nicer fruits, lesser blemish and lesser fruit flies attack.

It rained heavily plus strong wind the night after I bagged. Upon inspection in the morning in the morning, I found 2 bags had fallen. When I'm back at the farm, shall redo after my vacation.

Propagating & Planting Soursop, Annona Muricata

The small plant lets at the back.

I tried to propagate some cuttings of the Soursop last December, none grew. Those that were propagated with seeds, brought back from my vacation in Saigon, Vietnam grew. I started them off on a shaded raised bed. Due to the hard shell on the seeds, it took about 4 weeks to sprout.
Some of the seedlings were destroyed due to the heavy rain. It gets up rooted, toppled & decayed. A covered nursery should perform better. A set back would be it required watering.  Even with this natural selection, I get more than a hundred plant lets. These were then transferred into poly bags. I choose to used the 6x9" size as I don't think that it shall grow large.

100 Soursop & 20 Agarwood.

Decided to plant it from seeds without grafting as I find that it can bear fruits in about 2 1/2 years. The tree in our little farm had born 3 lovely fruits. Tasted the 1st fruits and it's very sweet (ripe on tree). Sold off the second. The 3rd is a large one, and am selling it off. Should I decide to graft, then I could harvest scion from this tree.

Transferred 100 Soursop to Parcel 3 for field planting. We had clear a piece of land at the bottom of Parcel 1, next to the small river. It took us a while to prepare the land as we were short handed.

The planting took us longer than I expected as the land was recently cleared. The undergrowth had not decayed. It was also a bit rocky. The land was also undulating. Planted about 25 Berangan Bananas along the river side. Planted about 40 Soursop with a distance of 15 X 15'. This took us a full day. Guess we can still squeeze in a few more on the slope side. Shall have to do this on another day sometime next week. Estimate to have some remainder of about 50 plant lets. Shall keep these in the poly bags as we need to start our round of weed management & fertilization. Most probably shall transfer them into a bigger size bag. If we still have not plant them soon, maybe I shall use some of them to tried out on grafting.

Soursop Number 1, ripe on the tree.

Spoken with my buyers and they says that the demand is growing. According to them customers uses it as fresh fruits and for juice. This may be due to the health benefits of soursop, it's getting more widely know. The pulp & leaf of Soursop shows strong evidence in cancer cure. I like the aroma of Soursop, the fruits I only like the sweet type. I had also used the leafs to boil tea, It taste good with a strong aroma of soursop. I used the 3rd till 5th leafs from the tip.

Had been thinking of Carbon Footprint lately. Since I had been planting so many trees, I guess I should have lots of Personal carbon credits.

Lets hope that these soursop grow vigorously.