Golf Course Turf Grass

Hotel Bangi-Putrajaya

Turf Repairing in progress

Let's go have a round of Golf!
Did a presentation with the Course management people and started a trial for Turf at Bangi Golf Course Resort on the 4th October 2017. Went around the course to orientate myself with the Assistant Course Superintendent. A big thank you. I understand a little more as Turf to a layman like me is weeds.

I found out that Turf needs to be repaired and lots of efforts and steps are taken to to that. Let along using machines that I had not encountered before.

Turf is practically planted in sand and I was made to understand that there is a sub soil level, which include drainage as well. In-fact layers had to be prepared one by one.

There are also different Turf for different area, like greens, fairways, putting & etc. Name of the turf also sounds so alien to me, as I normally refer them as weeds or grass.


As I had never planted grass before, and had a long though on how to go about this.

Irregular Turf.

I can out with an idea of making a marked area and do it at a different concentration. After a couple of trails with other plants in Malaysia, I have a hunch that we don't require a high concentration as stated by our principle, or was it that I calculate wrongly...

This is what I came up with. Bought some PVC
pipes and raffles string. I guess yellow is easier to see. We did this in the nursery in 3 sections. Concentration from 1:200 to 1:600. I then sprinkle in some compost, our Richfield, formulation with Micorriza and Super Nano Gel.

Took me about 2 horse to complete. We were recommended to apply AgroSol either in the morning or evening. Most of the time all my trials, my application time is away from the recommended time, as by the time I finished preparing, it's most probably late morning or afternoon.

I left, and schedule my next schedule in 14 days' time.

Note the Turf is practically growing on sand.

In the mean time I was reckoning, what else can we do for Golf course? I then took time to find out why do they need to grow Turf on sand, which is a poor growing media. It needs lots of nutrients and water to support the Turf. Due to continuous irrigation, we need to manage fungus disease.  I found out that Turf is practically growing in a hydroponic method, because it need to drain off water from the course way. Easier to walk for the golfer with soil/ mud sticking onto their shoes.

Green is turf, Red is root zone and Blue is sand.
On the right, we insert in a layer of BioRichar

Can we make the Golf course more green as in less chemical? Can we reduce the workforce required? After discussing with the management, they came up wit a magic number, 30%. If we can have a saving of 30%, yes , they can explore working with us.

After corresponding with the Assistant Superintendent. I proposed that we work with 2 approach. On the top we treat the turf with our Pure Plant Energy, AroSol. On the bottom we try to amend the sand (Soil). Our Richfield is a good candidate. Germany technology, the Mycorriza promotes root growth, right in the root zone. Porosity and Moisture retention is great. Rich with organic matter, inoculated with good effective microbes shall manifest the growth of the EM. Super Nano gel absorb water, retain and release slowly shall greatly reduce irrigation and energy cost. Introducing a thin layer of say 10 to 20 mm in the root zone should have very good long term effect. Hope this shall help us reach our magic figure. Decided to incorporate this on my next visit.

23rd October. As anticipated, the 1:600 shows better performance.

This is the first time I used an auguring tool of this sort. I had initially scheduled half a day for this task. With this tool, it was a breeze and managed to complete in a very short time. But still, age had caught up with me. Needed plenty of rest in between.

I aimed for the root zone depth, replaced some sand with Richfield. 4 holes per slot.

My visit today 3rd November . Check out my video. The round patch is visible. It is effective

The 200, note the round patches.

The 400, note the round patches.

The 600, note the round patches.

Closer up of the 600.

My visit today, it's drizzling and not suitable for spray AgroSol. Shall come back and continue the trial later part of the month. I personally is very excited as am getting remarkable improvements in 28 days.

Looking forward to optimize further, maybe with a higher range of 1:500, 1:700 and 1:900.

Well, can only do this after my vacation. Stay tune.



AgroSol Grapes results in Malaysia
#Agrosol #Organic #Natural #BeeFriendly 
Tested in Malaysia for #AvocadoFriendly #GrapeFriendly #DurianFriendly #MangoFriendly #RockmelonFriendly #PapayaFriendly
 #TurfFriendly #FigFriendly

Farm Biosecurity

Was doing so field work in Sabah and had the opportunity of meeting some people in Ministry Of Agriculture. This topic Biosecurity pops up we had a short discussion on this.

What is Biosecurity (Farm)?
 Biosecurity is the management of risks to the economy, the environment, and the community, of pests and diseases entering, emerging, establishing or spreading.
We as a farmer, it is our responsibility to set up measures designed not only to protect our property from the entry and spread of pests, diseases and weeds but also spreading these to our neighbors.. Farm biosecurity is our responsibility, and that of every person visiting or working on your property.

If a new pest or disease becomes established on your farm, it will affect your business through increased costs (for monitoring, production practices, additional chemical use and labour), reduced productivity (in yield and/or quality) or loss of markets. Early detection and immediate reporting of an exotic pest or disease increases the chance of effective and efficient eradication.

Management of Biosecurity risk had always been in place and MOA had taken the initiative to tighten and enforce these measures. We had been shown items that had been confiscated and had starting to quarantine the whole farm, pending investigation. 

Govt taking stringent steps to prevent entry of diseased produce

Had time to drop by Sabah Tea garden form a break. Had Tea, Fritters and Ice cream.

It feels good to be back in the field.
#TreatTheSoil #BioSecurity

Our Little Farm

Our extended water holding pool.

One month had passed. We had settled down and are working at full steam. All of us are in very high spirit. Just had a meeting and was happy to announced that we had manage to trim down our monthly expenses and had a slight increase in gross income. Still working to achieve our short term plan of arresting negative cash flow, end of February.
Our daily operation is running smoothly. We normally start off at 7.00 am with watering, follow by harvesting and transplanting. Later part of the day are mostly for maintenance, fertilizing, preparation and etc. Ending the day at about 5.00 pm with another round of watering.
Had already finished off transplanting all the green vegetables. It has freed us from working on a too tight daily schedule and kept us from planting off the full four acres. We should see more progress this month.

Uneven germination of F1 sweet corn.

We had lots of issues in October, after the changes. We had water supply problem, due to the dry weather. We had insects / predator attacks. Soil and plant disease,  some we had solve, some still pending. Our trial plot of brunching onions failed miserably. Only a few managed to germinate and all failed to grow. Our new planting of F1 Sweet corn 45 & 55 days), half failed to germinated. We had planted ground nuts to replaced those that failed to germinate. We had also replaced those died off brinjals (Phytopthora) with pumpkins. It was so hectic like fighting fire, here & there. At least now we can have a breather.
This month we are trying to plant bitter gourd, Ash gourd (F1 early mature new seeds from supplier) and some Bentong Ginger (courtesy of Joseph).

Pumpkins on raised bed and replacement for die-off eggplants.

Our first batch of ginger was harvested and we managed only 35 kilos of harvest. We made a lot of mistakes on this first batch. Biggest mistake was using too 'hot' a fertilizer and it almost killed off the whole batch. We are grateful that we still managed 35 kilos. We also harvested late as we have to wait for those almost died off plant to rejuvenate and the good ones are already too matured. After harvesting we had free up some land. Half had been germinated with Lady's Finger (okra). We had planted some left over shoots and the Bentong ginger on raised bed, within watering range this time. Shall see how it perform.

 Some of the Sayur Manis (Sue Jia Choy) have started to grow. We hope to grow more of these as there are low maintenance and provide regular harvest, even if it's on a lower price.

Did a trial run of Carbonized Rice Husk. It was 'simply' built with whatever that was available from scraps. Managed 2 batches, then the rain started. Shall stop until the rainy days are over.
Rice hulls are composed of 20% inorganic materials and 80% organic materials. The organic fraction of the rice hull includes cellulose and hemicellulose (50%), lignin (26%) and other compounds such as oil and proteins (4%) (de Souza et al., 2002). The high concentration of lignin in rice hulls impedes decomposition processes (more than 4 months) and reduces the bioavailability of the remaining organic components of the rice hull. Biological lignin decomposition is primarily an aerobic process carried out by fungi. The production of carbonized rice hull has been identified as an appropriate method for circumventing this problem. Carbonized rice hull is a crucial ingredient of bokashi organic fertilizer and can also be used in composting toilets and animal bedding. Carbonized rice hull results from the incomplete combustion of rice hulls under high heat and low oxygen conditions (pyrolysis). Pyrolysis causes the decomposition of organic materials such as lignin and cellulose, leaving a residue of carbon and mineral nutrients. Breaking down the lignin accelerates decomposition of the rice hulls and the subsequent release of nutrients. When Carbonized rice hull is incorporated in bokashi organic fertilizer it provides a carbon source for microorganisms to balance the high nitrogen content of the manure. Carbonization conserves the physical structure of the rice hull which provides a colonization site for beneficial microorganisms, contributes to soil permeability and water retention, and improves aeration of the soil. Carbonized rice hulls also contain nutrients such as potassium, phosphorous, calcium, magnesium and other micro-elements.
Stay tune for more news on the second half of the month.

Back to Farming 2

Back to our farm today, after another long break. Been away from end March till now. Didn't plan to do much today, mostly walk about and getting updates. The long rainy spell did not go too well on the farm and is affecting some corps. The germination that we did back in March, failed.
Today we are finishing off our nursery. We built this to try germinating Egg plant & Chili. We made a small pool with vinyls carpet, creating a moist & cool place. We built frames for the shade. Side fencing to prevent the neighbors chicken from eating the seeds. Burned soil mixed with sawdust was used on Styrofoam germination tray (recycled, used). Seeds were sprinkled and again covered with sawdust. Tray is watered with some enzyme. Put tray into pool, covered it and let's hope it'll germinate in a couple of days.

Effective Microbs (E.M.), Eco Enzmes & Growth Hormones

Did some reading on E.M, Eco Enzyme & growth hormones. Decide to DIY some to give it a try. Did one with papaya for E.M., did one with small banana shoot for growth hormones, and another one with a purchase compost. I'll  do an update when it's fermented. Cheers.