Short Farm Working Tour

 Working Tour.

Just finished a short working tour and shall make my way home tomorrow morning to keep my family company. Even though it's a short tour, I injured my right hand, sprained my right wrist and had plenty ant bites (even at my buttock). It's too challenging as I had been idle for quite a while, now my whole body is aching. Most of the time, it's mind willing, but body unable. Almost all my target fell short as I was too tired half way through. Must be getting old.

Thanks to my partner, whom had kept things going during my absence. There were too many challenges for us to handle. We had some pretty dry, then pretty wet days, which hinder our access. Left with only 1 helper. Luckily my partner managed to recruit some part timers to tie us through. Had to fine tune our strategy to fit.

The most well kept is Parcel 1 due to it's location. Managed to control the weeds here and even did partial fertilization. We are reverting back to organic fertilizer this time, hope to supplement back some Trace Elements (TE) and Calcium Carbonate.

Had 2 fallen trees, due to termites infestation. We had these treated a few months back, but seems that the woody part had been eaten and with strong wind. Had these replace with Jackfruit trees.

Wild bees are abundant here, still harboring the plan to go into Bees Farming once the rubber tress can be tapped. We brought in lots of rejects papayas to feed the chicken and it attract lots of bees. They also loves over ripen bananas. Shall research more to find out if these are suitable for Bees Farming. I notice there are 2 types and I'm sure the big black ones are not suitable.

The initial Avocado (seeds, not grafted) are doing well. We'll see when can these flowers or I might graft onto these later. Did a check on the grafted Avocados, most of them are doing well, 1 missing, 1 died. Checked on the Soursop that were planted next to the access road. A couple died and some were covered up by land slides. Managed to replaced some of these.

Our Free Range Kampung Chicken is about 60 chicken strong now. We are targeting it to reach 200 before we decide if we want to take it to a bigger scale. These are some of the 2 days old chicks.

Parcel 5, our little farm, had culled some papaya trees. Our market does not accept the yellow flesh and doesn't like the round fruit types. As we still have lots of seedlings, we manage to replace some. It'll take a while before we can replace all. Seeds selection and multiple planting can minimize this. I had failed to emulate the papaya farm into our rubber plantation as the rubber trees canopy is getting large and blocking off the sunlight. We can only do it on new planting / land when the rubber trees are small. Harvesting is also a problem in hilly conditions / difficult access as papaya can be harvested twice weekly. Still Papaya has certain advantage over Banana as a cash crops in Rubber Plantation.

Managed to recover quite a numbers of seedlings / plant-lets. We have about 50 Soursops, 200 Agarwood, 150 Jackfruits, 100 Avocados and 50 Mangoes, a couple of Limes and a Durian. Some of the Jackfruits plant-lets are too large for rootstock. No sure if it can wait as I bought 4 Honey Jackfuits, which I had just planted for scion. Maybe have to plant these first, then do a field grafting. Managed to graft about 50 Avocados plant-lets. Hope that the successful rate is acceptable.

The pruning scissor gave way and I injured my right hand. Had been using this scissor for a couple of months. May had used it to cut too thick a scion. This is the dis-advantage of using forged / cast iron type. Bought a new one of MS steel to replace. MS steel shall bend, but not snap. The old scissor spring (straight wound) always falls off, and the hold (shut) broke off not long after used. The new one compare much better (maybe it's new & sharp).

 One afternoon, dark clouds looming and it rained heavily not long after. Well, had a productive week and I did all that I could, given the circumstances as I'm still worry about my wife. Have a few hours of rest and shall start my journey home, first light tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Mother Nature, The Bad Weather Continue with 4X4 Off Road

The Weather must be playing a joke on us. It continued to rain, heavily. The rain had soften up the soil. Experiencing lots of topple over of plants in our Rubber plantation, Parcel 1, 2, 3 and 6. The rain also cause pressure on over access roads within our plantation. Soil erosion, water running off the road, causing heavy erosion. 
After doing our weed management for Parcel 1, 2 & 3, were doing our round on 14th July, this was a very memorial day. Our adventure started early in the morning. Our plan was brought forward (from 16th July as the weather forecast was favorable for 16th) to today as our helpers had ran out of food supplies. Our chore was simple, send in food supplies to our helper in Parcel 1, collect our equipment, spraying pumps and bush cutters, proceed to Parcel 6 and clear some weeds along the terrace.

The Slope taken on a sunny day.

Access to Parcel 1 is pretty straight forward  as road are in the process of being upgraded. The bad section is about the last few kilometers to our plantation. Our helper had locked up the store and went off to work in Parcel 3. Our Hilux got stuck at the middle of the up hill slope. The steep gradient at the lower right of the picture. We couldn't make a u turn and had to reverse all the way down the muddy & slippery slope. Jamming the brake is of no use as the tires are slipping like if you were on butter. Note we are already using knobby off road tires. Slide in to the side drain, on the hill side to control our decent. Finally made it to the bottom.
After collecting our equipment, we travel though the back road to Parcel 6. These roads are connecting road, between Palm Oil estate, ex logging track and some not too bad tracks public tracks. We had to transverse very slowly as it had been a while since I've used this road. Again we slide to the side, hitting the banks of the slope during a couple of descend. This time it's not too bad as there are banks on both sides. We managed to reach Parcel 6 in the early afternoon. Parked the truck by the road side and proceed with our work. By mid day as we were working deeper into our plantation, drove the Hilux down to our shed as the ground had dried up. Continued with our work.
Then came a sudden down pour at about 2.30 pm. We didn't have time to drive our Hilux back to the main track, which is just about 500 meters. We got stuck at the slope with high incline. We made lots of tries under the heavy rain. Then we heard some lorry noise and ran out to the main road, seeking help. They 5 ton lorry carrying palm seed is also stuck and had slip to the bank, blocking half the road. Found out from the driver that another 4X4 5 ton truck is on the way. Unfortunately, it also got stuck next to the 1st truck, making it impassable. They called for help and a heavily modified Hilux was send. Manage to pull out the 4x4 5 ton truck but not the 1st truck. They then decided to form a train, the 4x4 tuck, pulling the Hilux, then pulling the 1st 5 ton truck. Managed to free the 1st truck after many tries. The 2 truck left as they were heavily loaded and wouldn't want to go risk going down the slope again. With the power heavily modified Hilux equipped with huge knobby mud tires & winch, all of us figured that it should be an easy job as our truck was just lightly loaded.

Unfortunately our access road was too narrow, muddy, slippery and angled wrongly, slanting toward the cliff side. The Hilux gave up after 4 tries as it was slipping toward the cliff side and the driver feels it's too dangerous. He too has difficulty getting back to the main track as his truck keep slipping.

Had no choice but to abandon our truck. Trek out about 2 kilometers to the tared road to wait for our partner to take us home. While waiting, we chance upon another Toyota Land Cruiser (HZJ79), deems as the 4X4 work horse. It house a 4,200 cc diesel engine. Again we went in hoping to free our truck. The driver deem it to be too dangerous as it's still raining too muddy, slippery and angled towards the cliff. Suggested to wait till the ground dries up before attempting.

Abandoning out truck for the second time. We went home, totally wet, tired and feeling dejected. Our hope is to wait for the ground to dry up in a day or so. Then try again.

 Next day, which is a Sunday, manage to get a friend to help. A heavily modified Hilux, latest model, with a winch. The rain had stopped at dawn, ground had dried slightly, but still slippery. We waited till mid day. The Hilux manage to dislodge us from the slope with it's winch. Problem came when the Hilux was trying to reverse out. It nearly fell off the cliff side 3 times. Use our truck as an anchor to winch itself back onto the track as there were no large tree in the correct position. Each time, pulling us along as the track is still very slippery.

Agfer aligning the Hilux, we used spades and cangkor, to level slightly the track, hoping that it would not make the vehicle slip off the cliff side. We then chance upon another Toyota Hilux on the main track and requested his help to pull out the heavily modified Hilux. The Hilux made it out on it's own this time after leveling the track. It also used the bank side as a guide.

All of us made it out, back to the tared road. It is my first heavy duty 4X4 off road adventure. It was Man & Machine verses Nature & Weather. What a day! Experience gained in using winch and recovery of stranded vehicle. This is what real adventure is like, not like those planned trips with lots of backup vehicles and equipment.

The section where the 2 trucks were stuck.

The section where we were stuck.

We went back the next day to complete our work. As it was raining the whole night till dawn, we dare not risk driving down the incline even on the main track. This time we parked at the top and trek down the main track to Parcel 6. Had finished off trimming the weeds on Parcel 6. Shall need to drop by again next week to administer herbicide. Hopefully the weather shall improve by then.

The section where our rescuer almost fell off the track to the cliff side on the right.

Mother Nature, The Weather 2.

We had our "last" pump for irrigation on the 4th July. Our pond had fallen to too low a level for the pump to pump up, even after moving the pump to the lowest possible location.
The weather started to change abruptly. Rain started to break on the 5th July. It has been raining almost nightly. Now it even rained twice in a day.

Both our ponds is at the maximum level. Initially the secondary pool experienced an algae boom. Since the gravity pipe in water is back in service, decided to fill up the main pond, which then run off to this secondary pond. It cleared up after 2 days.

After raining almost nightly, our Parcel 5 is too wet and the ground id giving way. We already had a couple of fallen bananas, papayas and plenty spoiled seedlings of papaya and ginger.

Let's hope the weather shall stabilize, goes back to normal soon so that we can continue with our new planting.
We need to rectify the run off pipe for the main pond as we had set it too high. It shall be quite tedious as we need to dig it out again. Shall make time for this.

Water

Importance of water In Agriculture.

Water is very important in agriculture. Never take it for granted. When we started our farm, we went on to check out the creek with some neighbors, and were told that it never dries up. This creek runs across our farm diagonally. We also did a pipe-in water from the hills quite a distant away with a 50 mm hdpe pipe. Things were running well up till end July. We had converted 1 acres (out of 4) to plant vegetables that requires lots of water daily. While expanding the 1 acre, the dry spell came and it did not rained for a period of 3 weeks. The small creek start to dry up. We estimated the volume of input from the creek is not sufficient for our use. Our first option is to use our pipe-in water. As it was from quite a far distance, and incidentally there were some road works and water pipe laying works being carried out at the same time. These cause plenty of disruption on the pipe-in water supply. It was unreliable. We had up to 6 days without pipe-in water. This cause quite a numbers of seedlings to died off. Those that survive are stunt, and have difficulty of recovering. Our second option was to save whatever possible and we use our water sparingly. We then engaged a tractor to dig three wells along the creek and one well on our neighbor's land. Luckily we strike underground water at our neighbor's land. It was fine for a while. We also used the pipe-in water to fill up the well at the creek. Unfortunately, part of the cliff eroded and block off the underground water inlet. Water level was recovering too slowly for our usage (as we have extended till 2 acres of vegetable). We then reverted to the wells at the creek. We have sufficient water for the moment, but we are only planting 2 out of 4 acres of our farm. Our option now is to plant plants that requires less water. We have 4 wells to rotate so we feel that we should be good for a stretch of three weeks of no / intermittent rain. We then proceed to plant out our remaining land. Things turned out well for us, as the rain came on the evening of 11th September. It's raining daily mostly in the late evening or night. We are so grateful to the weather and the weather forecast people. A big Thank You.

Thai Super Sweet Corn

Our first trial of Thailand sweet corn is a failure. The corn did not grew well. Some were not growing, some retarded growth, some did not bear fruits, some even died / did not sprout. This is the flowering stage. The tassel is normal, but the stalk of this plant looks too small.

Weeds were thriving well. There were lots of ants in most corns plants, red and well as black ants. Guess they are there for the sugar. Am guessing that should the weeds grows higher than the corn, it shall interfere with it's growth and pollination. Shall have to keep the weeds lower than the lowest ear.

The fruit size is small. The stalk is normal and strong. Leaves are green and wide. Not enough nutrient?

First harvest which we tested. It was so sweet. The corn is also very crunchy. Like the taste, texture and smell even though I'm not a corn lover (eater).












The second harvest. These are the bigger size ones. Others all small. From this trial, we had identify some problems that leads to this failed production. Lost of seeds due to many chickens. Weather was too went, as there were too much rain during the last 2 months. Soil not suitable as other corns (chicken feed) are thriving. No fertilization used. Due to their sweetness, i guess they require certain fertilizer more. We also tried using 1, 2 and 3 seeds during planting.
Shall do more trial under most controlled conditions as we still have some seeds of Thailand Super Sweet and other Hybrid corn. Hope we have better produce then.

Landslide caused by heavy rain.

Heavy rain during March till May caused a couple of land slide at our farm. Land slide occurred in Parcel 2 and Parcel 3.

The main access road to the top is impassable at the moment. Luckily we still have access by using the side access. Hopefully after the rainy season, we can clear the land slide. As it is now, there is no point clearing it as it slides again.